


Runes

by Serriya (Keolah)



Category: Changeling: the Dreaming, Warhammer 40.000, Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Captivity, Complete, Corruption, Crack, Drug Addiction, Dubious Consent, Elves, Explicit Sexual Content, Fae & Fairies, Hallucinations, Humor, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Mental Instability, Multi, Murder, NaNoWriMo, Novel, Torture, Tragedy, Unseelie Court, Violence, Werewolf Sex, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-01
Updated: 2007-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:44:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 49,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dream Gates connect many different planets together, and are guarded by a group of Garou known as the Gate Watchers. The discovery of an ancient set of magic books leads a group of young Garou down a dark path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Day Before the End of the World

When Smoke stumbled in through the door that evening, Digit and Skywalker looked up at him.

"Welcome home, Smokey," Sky said. "How was the party?"

"It was okay," Smoke replied. "Never thought they'd make sure an event of a birthday party for little old me. So what if I'm sixteen now? What's the big deal?"

Skywalker chuckled softly and put out his cigarette, flipped on some loud music, pulled out a box of pizza, and said, "Well, birthday boy, it's time for party number two. Dig in."

Smoke chuckled and went over to grab a slice of pizza and plop himself down in a saggy chair. "Yeah, most of my family was there, and it was a real madhouse. My little niece couldn't decide on whether to call me 'Unca Smokey' or 'Unca Jordie'. Heh, silly girl, I've been going by he name Second-Hand Smoke since before she was even born. But there was a huge cake, too, chocolate of course..."

"Enough about that," Sky interrupted, holding up a hand. "Tell us about the _presents_."

"Well, my Aunt Marla gave me some new boxers," Smoke drawled wryly. "My sisters pitched in to get me a new holo-projector, it was kind of big so I left it there to bring over in the morning, though. And my dad even showed up -- I wasn't expecting him to, as he's always so busy with work somewhere or another, but he stopped by to wish me a happy birthday and give me a new gun." He pulled out the sleek little weapon to show them.

"Hmm," Digit said, looking up at it. "Looks like a projectile enhancement enchantment coupled with a significant remodulating demonstrative force push, interlinked with a buffered ethereal conduit--"

Skywalker held up a hand sharply to interrupt her. "Okay, enough technobabble. What was that in English?"

Digit smirked broadly at him and licked some tomato sauce off her fingers from her slice of pizza. "It shoots a lot harder than its size would indicate, and it can even create its own telekinetic ammunition when it's out of real ammo, though you'd still want to keep ammo on hand for things like silver and cold iron, since it can't simulate that."

"Spiffy," Skywalker said with a grin, reaching over to grab another slice of pizza himself.

"Yeah, dad always comes up with the most, uh, useful presents," Smoke said with a chuckle, setting the gun aside for the moment. "Not like the bugs have been seen in decades anyway, though."

"Eh, there's always going to be stuff wanting to cause trouble," Skywalker says. "Like the Death Dancers."

"There aren't any Death Dancers on planet Sardinia. They'd never be able to get through the Gates," Smoke replied with a snort.

Sky shook his head grimly a bit. "Don't underestimate them, Smokey. You should know well enough by now that the Dream Gates are not actually necessary for interstellar travel. They're just a hell of a lot more convenient and _safer_ than doing it the hard way. If the Dancers on the Edge of Death really want to get to a planet, they'll find a way to get there eventually. Why do you think there's always scattered reports of them turning up randomly where there was never any sign of them before?"

"Like that one eighteen years ago that produced you?" Digit put in with a smirk.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Skywalker said, making a face. "Bad enough my biological father showed up later to attempt to tempt me to the 'dark side' and I got stuck with the name 'Skywalker' ever since. To be fair, I'm sure my adoptive parents didn't realize that when they named me 'Lukas'."

Smoke chuckled a bit and said, "Well, if any Death Dancers randomly turn up in the near future, at least I'll have something decent to shoot at them with. At the moment, though, I think I'm going to turn in."

Smoke finished up his last slice of pizza and headed down the adjacent hallway and into his room. Sky looked at his watch, tapped his foot absently, and commented lightly to Digit, "Wait for it."

Moments later, Smoke emerged into the living room again with a very interesting expression on his face. "Sky, there's a naked woman in my bedroom."

"Ah, so you've seen my present," Sky replied with a grin. "I bought you a whore for your birthday. Enjoy."

Smoke stared at him for several more moments before adding, "She's my biology teacher!"

"Consider it an extracurricular activity," Skywalker said. "Besides, the way they pay teachers these days, can you blame her for having a supplemental job on weekends?"

Smoke blanched, and then flushed, as he tried to decide what to say, before finally murmuring, "Well, actually, she's pretty hot..." He turned back to return to his room, Skywalker laughing brightly in his wake.

Digit smirked broadly and commented, "Did you really have to do that?"

Skywalker grabbed the last slice of pizza that she hadn't seemed too interested in and chomped into it. "Yup," he said between bites.

"But what if he turns out to be gay?" Digit wondered. "You should have at least gotten him a sexy man too and let him choose."

"He's not gay, Digit," Skywalker said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, I've seen the logs of what he looks at when he gets into my porno collection when he thinks nobody is looking."

"Oy, if you say so. Don't know what he'd have to be so embarassed about, anyway. It's not like either of us are going to care," Digit said with a smirk.

"He'll get over it soon enough, I'm sure. I mean, he did just go back to screw his biology teacher, after all."

"Yeah, I thought she was pretty hot, myself," Digit added. "A pity she's straight, I'd have wanted some of that myself."

"Heh, dykes," Sky said with fond amusement. "And you never let me watch either, or even record it!"

"Such a pig," Digit said lightly, chuckling.

* * *

The next morning dawned fresh and bright, as the yellow sun spilled over the colony on planet Sardinia to reveal ruined buildings and broken and bloody bodies scattered in the streets. A dark swath had been cut from the location of the Dream Gate to somewhere in the middle of the town, leaving the rest of the colony relatively untouched.

Skywalker muttered the words, "Aw shit," as he scanned through the news over his implants at breakfast that morning. Well, so it was closer to noon when they actually bothered getting out of bed. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it and started to puff on it nervously.

"What is it?" Digit mumbled sleepily as she stumbled into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee.

"Take a gander at the news net, Didge," Sky said, shaking his head grimly. "It doesn't look good."

Digit paused for a moment as she accessed her own implants, then blinked and said, "How did Death Dancers get through the Gate itself?"

"Death Dancers? What?" said Smoke as he came into the room himself, wearing nothing but the new boxers that his aunt had given him, which were covered in bright red hearts.

"According to the news, if you're too lazy and horny to look," Sky chided lightly, "it appears that Death Dancers poured out of the Dream Gate at around three in the morning last night, slaughtering everything in their path until they got to the residence of Ebenezer Farstead."

"What the hell did they want with that old coot?" Digit wondered as she gulped down her coffee.

"They didn't know, but the fuckers clearly weren't interested in anything else," Sky said, frowning deeply. "Strange, I would have expected the other Gate Watchers to have contacted us by now, unless..."

"They might have all been around the Gate," Digit said gravely. "They were likely all killed trying to stop the invasion. There were never many Garou on Sardinia colony in the first place."

"What about my family? Are they alright?" Smoke wondered in concern.

"Don't worry, kiddo, they should be fine," Sky assured him. "Their homes are well aware from the area that appears to have been affected. Alright, I guess it looks like it's to us, then. Smokey, go get dressed, we're gonna need to head down to the Gate area and find out what the hell is going on. At least to all reports it sounds like they're long gone by now. Oh, and bring your gun, too. And lots of ammo."

"Right," Smoke said uneasily as he turned for the door. "Guess I'll need to send Anna home too..."

"Calling her Anna, now?" Sky jibed with a faint grin. "Not Mrs. Fitzpatrick?"

Smoke blushed again and rolled his eyes as he left the kitchen without a further word.

"Heh, he'll get over the blushing business soon enough, as amusing as it is," Sky said with a smirk, shaking his head as he finished up his own coffee and went to prepare to leave himself. He wasn't about to go out there with any shortage of weaponry, even if they thought the Death Dancers were all gone by now.

The three of them gathered at the front of the house when they'd gotten ready to go, the sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky that early afternoon. Boldly they set off down the walkway, then hopped into the hovercar parked on the street and flew over toward what was left of the Gate Station.

There wasn't really very much left beyond the Dream Gate itself, now standing as a shimmering rectangle between rune-covered stones in the middle of a pile of debris that had been the station. Many of the bodies had already been cleared away, but there was no disguising the blood smeared across the ground and the burnt and broken building materials and equipment scattered about.

"What a mess," breathed Skywalker as he looked over the battlefield, grimly shaking his head.


	2. The Obligatory Excessive Info Dump

As the three of them surveyed the wreckage around what had been the Gate Station of Sardinia colony, a uniformed woman approached them quickly. She looked more than a little shaken at the moment, but uninjured.

"Oh, thank Gaia, I am so glad to see you," the police officer told them. "I'm Officer Jenkins. We haven't been able to get ahold of any of the other Gate Watchers, and fear the worst."

"Well, we'll assist however we can," Sky assured her. "What the hell is going on here?"

"If you've read the news on the 'net, you probably don't know much more than we do right now," Jenkins said. "We do, however, have someone here who seems to be offering to give some more information on the matter, but he refuses to speak with anyone but a Gate Watcher! So you can see why I'm so glad you're here."

"Where is he at?" Digit asked. "We'll speak with him and find out what he has to say."

"Come right this way," Officer Jenkins said as she proceeded to lead the three Garou off away from the rubble and toward the more intact buildings on the far side. Some ways past the epicenter of damaged buildings lay the police station, for the most part untouched as it hadn't been in the Death Dancers' way.

When they were led inside the building to a side room, they saw a squat, green-skinned fellow sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette. The goblin glanced up at them when they arrived and said, "Ah, finally, they brought me the Gate Watchers did they? Hmm, a bit young, but you'll have to do. Come on, sit down, my name's Fizzik, and I've got lots to cover."

Digit, Skywalker, and Smoke proceeded to file into the room and take seats around the table, Sky reaching over to grab a cigarette himself and light it before anyone could object. "So what's this all about, then?" Skywalker asked.

"Okay, let me start at the beginning..." Fizzik said.

"Oh, great, this is info dump time, isn't it," Smoke groaned.

Fizzik smirked. "Yeah, pretty much. Now shut up and let me talk. Around fifty years ago or so, when the Bug War was still going on, some of the original Gate Watchers at the outpost on Tau Ceti IV found something very interesting. It was, apparently, a collection of very old books. Now, these weren't just your ordinary books, you see, they'd been sitting there for possibly millennia but were totally untouched by the ravages of time. What's more, they were written in some mystical, ancient tongue that none of them had any hope of understanding."

Digit frowned deeply. "The Tau Ceti books? I've heard something of them. They weren't the only relic of some ancient, unknown civilization to come to light, though. Probably about the most enigmatic one, however."

"Yeah," Fizzik said. "Seems the crap was so old and forgotten that even most of us Fae didn't know jack about it anymore, and anyone that actually might have hasn't been seen in ages anyway. You might think we Fae live a long time, but on an astronomical scale, a thousand years is _nothing_. Fact is that even we don't really know much of what came before."

"So what do these books have to do with the Death Dancers? Was that what they were attacking the colony for?" Skywalker wondered.

"Bingo," Fizzik said. "Now, just why is that, I'm sure you're wondering now? Why would these psychotic demonic death werewolves want a bunch of old relics they couldn't even read? Well, I'm gonna tell you why. And that'll answer just how they got through the Dream Gates, too, when the Fae had given such close scrutiny to who they'll allow through there."

"They found a way to decipher them?" Digit suggested.

"Smart girl," Fizzik said. "How old are you, fourteen, fifteen?"

"I'm twenty-one, thanks," Digit replied dryly.

"Whatever, kid," Fizzik said, waving a hand dismissively and dropping ashes on the floor carelessly. "Anyway. Yeah. Don't ask me just how they came across this information, but apparently the leaders of the Unseelie were _really_ interested in it. So they told the Death Dancers to go get them the rest of these books, and they could use the Dream Gates for so long as they liked in order to do it, too."

"But, that doesn't make sense," Digit said, frowning. "Why wouldn't they just _ask_ the colonies for them back? It's not like it isn't in our best interests to keep the Fae happy in order to continue using the Dream Gate network, whether the bugs are still a threat or not."

Fizzik shook his head. "You may be smart, kid, but you don't know how the Fae think. The Unseelie saw this as a slight, of having stolen something that was rightfully theirs, and they wanted it back, and didn't really care just how many people had to die to do that. Especially since it was the Death Dancers who brought the information to their attention, and not the Gate Watchers."

"Wait," Digit interrupted. "You're a goblin, aren't you? I thought the goblins were Unseelie too. What are you doing here telling us all this, then?"

Fizzik laughed, more of a cackle really, and put out his cigarette, then waved a knobbly finger at her. "Something tells me you don't know _anything_ about the Fae, little girl. Yeah, so some of us think that, enough of us for whatever reason might have to let the Death Dancers through, but that doesn't mean we all agree with it. I think the entire business is a whole load of bull, myself, and I don't give two shits about any dusty old books, no matter what phenomenal cosmic power they're supposed to hold the secrets to."

"Wait a minute," Skywalker said, holding up a hand to interrupt. "Phenomenal cosmic power? What?"

Fizzik snorted. "Yeah, it's probably about as much a load of hooey as it sounds. The way I heard it, see, these books weren't just old-ass cookbooks or travel guides to places that got wiped out in a supernova a million years ago. They're books of power, magical instruction, and contain all sorts of long-forgotten spells and knowledge. You bet the Unseelie are interested in it."

"Those books are scattered all across the colonies, though," Digit mused. "They were all distributed out to museums, libraries, and private collections as novelty items along with all the other miscellaneous artifacts that have been found over the years. You mean that those places are in danger of being attacked by the Death Dancers in the immediate future as well?"

"Damn right they are," Fizzik said, spitting onto the carpet. "Not that I really give a shit how many people die over it, but I don't wanna see these things fall into the Death Dancers' hands, because I don't like them, and especially not to the current leaders of the Unseelie, either. So that's why I'm going to help you stop them. Preferably from a safe distance for the most part so that I don't get hurt. Ain't putting _my_ life on the line for this shit."

"Won't the other Unseelie be mad at you for working against them, though?" Digit wondered.

"Maybe some of them will, but fuck them," Fizzik said, shrugging. "I don't honestly give a shit."

"And how the hell are three young Garou going to stop an army of Death Dancers, anyway?" Skywalker said dryly. "This is just a little bit out of our league."

"Not my problem," Fizzik said, waving a hand dismissively. "Find whatever other allies you think you're going to need, but I don't know just how much help they'd actually end up being, or if they wouldn't just betray you at some point and leave you completely screwed. Probably literally, knowing the Death Dancers and their more interesting habits, but anyway."

"Um. Right. Let's not think about that too much," Digit said a touch uneasily.

"So where do we start, anyway? We have no idea where the Death Dancers are or where they make their headquarters, if they even have one," Smoke wondered.

"Not my problem," Fizzik repeated. "That's up to you to find out. And see that you find out. I can help you get places. Even places the Dream Gates aren't normally supposed to be able to get you to." He gave them a knowing wink. "To get my attention, just say my name three times when you're in the Dream World and I'll come. That's Fizzik, remember? A lot easier to say than Rumplestiltskin. I can also hide you for a while if you're being pursued, but not for too long."

"Right..." Skywalker said, still a bit uncertain about the entire business. "Thanks for the info, Fizzik. We'll try to help however we can."

"Good," Fizzik said, hopping down from his chair. "Call me when you need me. I'm going back home where it's nice and safe now. Good luck." He strode out the door to leave the police station and head back through the Dream Gate again.

"Little guy sure talks a lot, doesn't he," Smoke muttered.

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," Skywalker replied. "Guess it's about time to set off an epic quest to save the galaxy or something, isn't it."

"This is going to work out well," Digit commented dryly. "I think we're going to need a theme song."

"No," Smoke said firmly.


	3. Why Do We Have To Save the Universe, Anyway?

"Alright, after doing some extensive research through the 'net, I have determined the current locations of a number of the Tau Ceti books," Digit told them. They were currently sitting around their house eating pizza rather than going off and trying to save the universe just at the moment.

"Great," Sky commented dryly. "Now tell me, how does that really help us?"

"They're all over the place," Digit said. "The books number in the dozens, and there may well be over a hundred of them. Some of them I have evidence of their existence but no known location at the present time. But just from the ones I do have, it's pretty clear that the Death Dancers will cause considerable damage should they attack those planets looking for them."

"And won't they still cause it anyway if we go there and take them?" Smoke put in. "And possibly more when they find out what they were looking for isn't there anymore?"

"That may well be so," Sky said. "But the question remains if the damage from allowing them to get their hands on these books would be worse... I'm guessing that's most likely a resounding 'yes'."

"Most definitely," Digit agrees. "If they have half the 'phenomenal cosmic power' as Fizzik indicated... That's not the sort of thing I'd like to see falling into Death Dancer _or_ Unseelie hands. Who knows what they'd do with it?"

"Yeah, so if we went and got these books one way or another, what the fuck would _we_ do with them?" Smoke wondered. "We sure as hell can't read them ourselves, even though I'm sure that 'phenomenal cosmic power' might be fairly useful in fighting off the damned Death Dancers."

"Well, let's see," Sky thought aloud. "The Death Dancers apparently _did_ find a way to decipher them, so there's clearly a way out there somewhere. Now, whether that way involves conversing with demons or other unpleasant beings is another question entirely. But it didn't sound to me like the books _themselves_ were evil or anything, certainly our own people that spent time trying to make sense of them never got that impression, and if they were magical in nature as they appear to be they would have positively stank ethereal-wise if they were."

"The books were originally found on Tau Ceti IV," Digit mused. "If we were to find the original means of translating them, I'd think that would be the best place to start."

"Exactly," Skywalker said, snapping his fingers.

"But we wouldn't even know what we were looking for there," Smoke pointed out. "And if the outpost there didn't stumble upon it in the fifty years since they found the books, what makes you think we'll find it?"

"Simple," Skywalker said. "Check the planetary surveillance records and see if Death Dancers have been there, and if so, what part of the planet they were hanging around. Then we can simply backtrace their steps and see where they went and what they might have found there."

"Wait a minute," Smoke said. "Even if they _did_ find something on Tau Ceti, it wouldn't even necessarily still be there. Maybe they destroyed it just to prevent anyone else from stumbling upon it or doing exactly what you're thinking."

"Possible, entirely possible," Sky conceded. "But we'll never know until we look, eh?"

"Best idea I've heard so far," Digit replied. "Let's go, before they blow up anything else." She climbed to her feet and headed for the door, the two boys closely behind her.

* * *

Arranging passage through the Dream Gate to planet Tau Ceti IV proved to be none too difficult in spite of the fact that the Gate Station that would normally handle such arrangements was demolished. However, as it was the Stations which notified the destination planet of incoming travellers, they were met with surprise on the other end as several Gate Watchers sprang to attention and pointed guns toward them.

"Don't worry, we're GWs too," Digit assured them. "If you haven't gotten the news yet, the Gate Station on Sardinia colony has been destroyed."

After confirming their identities, the Gate Watchers lowered their weapons and let them through. "So you came here to get away from the destruction on Sardinia?" said one of them, although if he disapproved of that idea he didn't make it obvious.

"No," Skywalker said. "We're here investigating the matter, as we believe it was connected to Tau Ceti. Do your surveillance recordings indicate any Death Dancer activity recently, or anything else... out of the ordinary?"

The Gate Watcher frowned and went aside to a nearby terminal to bring up some data. "No explicitly Death Dancer activity that we know of, anyway. We did, however, get a strange visitor around a week ago. Here's an image of him. Robert Jones, our records state his name is. Sneaky bugger, we didn't even realize anything was amiss until we realized he hadn't come through the gate and nobody knew where he'd come from."

"You think he might have been a Death Dancer?" Smoke said, frowning as he looked over the image. A perfectly ordinary looking man, one might even call him handsome, although the look in his eyes in the picture was a bit disturbing.

"Maybe. We didn't get a clear reading on him before he disappeared again. Don't know what he was doing around here or what he really wanted."

"Do you have any records of where he went while on this planet?" Skywalker probed. "Did he stay inside the outpost or poke around the wilderness?"

"We weren't really paying too much attention to what he might have been doing in the wilderness, but let's see what the satellite imagery might say. Hmm. Looks like he was on the north continent poking around the cave where those old weird books were found. Then he sat around in the forest to the west of there for days before coming back to this area briefly before he vanished again."

"The forest, huh?" Sky mused. "Okay, send me a list of coordinates where he'd been during that time. We're going to need to borrow a hovercar or something if you've got one to spare, too, to get up to that area."

"Can do," said the Gate Watcher helpfully, not bothering to question just why they needed to do this or why a group of such young werewolves had wound up with the task.

With transport arranged, Digit, Sky, and Smoke flew off to the northern continent, the largest continent on the planet. Tau Ceti IV was a terrestrial planet, covered in pristine oceans and vast forests. It was certainly a prime prospect for future expansion, with plenty of space and resources to support a population in the billions. On the other side of the wide, blue ocean, they landed at the coordinates which had been given and stepped out to take a look around.

The forest around them was made up of massive, gigantic trees like skyscrapers towering into the air. The land was hushed and quiet but for the sounds of birdsong above them in the branches, and the occasional rustle of foliage from the movements of small animals.

"Seems like a nice place for a vacation," Skywalker commented dryly, breaking the silence. "Now why the hell was that Bob Jones fellow here? I somehow doubt it was for communing with nature."

Digit shook her head slowly, looking around quietly, and said in scarcely more than a whisper, "There is a lot of power I can feel here. The Gauntlet between the physical plane and Umbra is paper-thin here. There's something about these trees... They seem very much alive, and I don't mean in the way trees are normally alive. They seem to have... souls?"

Smoke frowned a bit as he looked around the pristine forest himself. "Is there any way to communicate with them, then, I wonder?"

"Well... I suppose I can try," Digit offered. She let out a deep breath and went over to the base of one of the giant trees and sat down against the base of its trunk, and let her eyes slide shut. The boys stepped back to give her space and let her do just whatever it was she was trying to do to contact the soul in the tree.

The sun sank low over the planet, the emerald green filtered light on the forest floor slowly fading, and Smoke and Skywalker rather began to wish that they'd thought to bring along something to eat. However, just as they were considering flying back to the outpost to grab dinner, or hunt down one of the small furry woodland creatures and roast it on a spit, Digit snapped back to reality again.

"Didge? You okay?" Skywalker said, looking over to her in some concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Digit replied, standing up and brushing herself off. "That was just rather... intense. But I did find out exactly what we were looking for. Yes, he was here. And this was where he learned the secrets of the books. From the trees. Or more specifically, this tree. Most of them are too deep in 'sleep' to be very responsive, but a handful of them are close enough to waking to be able to answer when asked in the right way."

"What the fuck sort of trees are these if they'd give a Death Dancer arcane secrets like that?" Sky wondered, frowning deeply.

"He -- the tree, that is -- didn't realize what he was. He was rather shocked when he found out that the man was not as benevolent as he tricked the tree into believing," Digit explained. "But, maybe in something of contrition, he did share with me all the information required to decipher the books and the knowledge they contain. I'm sending it to you through your implants now."

"Wow," Smoke breathed as the information filtered through to him and he began to look it over. It was an incredibly complex language made up of fluid runes, the strangest bit of which was the fact that it was non-linear, unlike any other language he'd been familiar with. "No wonder our own linguists never had any luck translating this stuff."

"No fucking kidding," Sky agreed. "This is incredible. I've never seen anything like this before. This is going to take some time to absorb, I think."

"Yeah, really," Digit said with a nod. "Considering the time frame, I don't think our friend Bob has managed to do so yet either unless he's an absolute linguistic genius _and_ completely insane."

"Well, if he's a Death Dancer, he's probably got one of those qualifications, anyway," Sky commented dryly. "Let's head back to the outpost and get some dinner while we poke over this data. I'm starved."


	4. Demonstrating Phenomenal Cosmic Power By Scribbling On Napkins

If nothing else, the small outpost on planet Tau Ceti IV at least boasted a decent Italian restaurant. Over three heaping plates of spaghetti, the three young Garou sat and analyzed the data that they had gained.

"So what's the deal with this weird old language, anyway?" Skywalker mused. "You said it was non-linear? What's that supposed to mean? I mean, each of these symbols is made up of lines, aren't they?"

Digit shook her head. "That's not really quite what I meant. I meant the language as a whole is non-linear somehow, especially in its visual representation. And some interesting things could apparently be done with the spoken version when multiple people are involved, too. You see, unlike English, it doesn't just go from one letter, one word, to the next, forming sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books. It exists as a whole, simultaneously, with each word interconnected to each other word into a seamless piece."

Skywalker rubbed his nose. "Okay, and how exactly is _that_ sort of thing supposed to work, anyway? Sorry if I'm having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around the concept."

"Alright, check this out," Digit said, spreading her paper napkin in front of her and pulling out a ballpoint pen. She carefully scrawled on the paper one of the strange symbols from the alien language. "See this here? This is the rune for 'fire'. Now, if I were to add another one here, like so..." she scribbled another one next to it. "This one is 'green', indicating the color. Specifically it should indicate a green fire, then, right? But it doesn't matter which direction or which side of the fire rune that it's located on."

"Okay, right, I think I follow you so far," Skywalker said, slurping up a bit of spaghetti. "Go on."

Digit put down a couple more runes onto the paper. "Okay, here I have put the rune for 'burn' next to the one for 'fire', and then the one for 'paper' next to that one, but not next to the one for 'green'. Presumably, this means that the fire is burning the paper, but the paper itself isn't green. I think."

"You think," Sky said with a smirk. "Such a vote of confidence there."

Digit smirked back at him. "Yeah, well, so I'm still trying to make full sense of it all myself, but I think I've got the basics down at least. Okay, this last one here is the most important one, though. It's called the power rune..." She carefully marked a precise, complex symbol onto the napkin next to the fire rune on the remaining side of it that was not yet taken.

"So what does that one mean?" Smoke asked, peering over curiously.

Digit finished drawing the symbol, and without a word, she pressed her forefinger into it, concentrating for half a moment and igniting a sudden spark that seemed to jump from her hand and through the runes she had drawn. Then the napkin suddenly burst into eerie green flames, consuming it rapidly until it was nothing more than a tiny pile of ashes left on the table. Sky and Smoke stared at the spot where it had been.

"You aren't taking my napkin now, Didge," Sky said.

"Impressive," Smoke said. "Especially if we ever have to go up against a paper army."

"That little spell might have burned down the restaurant and maybe the entire outpost if I hadn't put in specific safety runes to tell it just what I wanted burned," Digit said. "Though probably not as I didn't also include enough strength-enhancing runes to give that kind of output."

"So you have to draw these marks on something in order for them to do things, or what?" Smoke wondered.

Digit shook her head. "Nope, although that's most useful when more permanent spells and enchantments are required, or things that you'd want to be able to trigger when you're not actually present. You could, however, just as easily cast a spell by making gestures into the air which form the shapes of the runes in question, speaking aloud power words in the language, or even simply forming the runes and words in your mind."

"Hmm, yeah, I can see where that would be useful," Sky said with a smirk, reaching over to chomp into a big hunk of garlic bread and gnaw on it a bit.

"So does this language and the people who spoke it have an actual name, or do we just have to keep calling it 'the language'?" Smoke asked.

"Sorry, thought I included that in the files I sent you," Digit said. "The people called themselves the El'dari, and the language was called the same thing conventionally. The name means 'People of the Stars' in their own language."

Sky commented, "Okay, I'd be going to accuse them of ripping off Tolkien, if they didn't probably predate him by a fair bit."

"By what's very likely thousands, if not _millions_ of years, unless I miss my guess entirely," Digit said.

"So I take it that these books we're looking for describe complex magical techniques in the El'dari language, then?" Smoke asked.

"Exactly," Digit said, nodding to him. "From the sounds of things, they were something along the lines of instruction manuals or textbooks. Perhaps not intended to be the be-all end-all of what was possible using El'dari magic, but definitely more than enough to give a good headstart into it and demonstrating a wide variety of what can be done with it."

"Okay, the idea of Death Dancers suddenly having access to that range of power is a little bit scary," Sky said. "They're scary enough on their own without adding more to it. Alright, we'll have to get started on this business in the morning, and go pick up what books we can find and get out of the hands of people that will very likely wind up getting killed otherwise or maybe anyway."

"Somehow I doubt that their current keepers are just going to happily turn them over to three kids," Smoke pointed out.

"Two kids and a woman who still looks like a kid," Digit corrected him with a smirk.

"Hey, I'm eighteen, I'm not a kid," Sky protested.

"The point stands," Smoke said wryly. "Especially the people who paid a lot to have these ancient relics in their collection solely for their novelty value, like old Ebenezer probably did. We'll probably have to sneak in and steal them, unfortunately."

"Thankfully we're a good deal more subtle than the Death Dancers," Sky said.

"Like subtly speaking aloud about stealing in a public restaurant?" said a fourth voice. Looking up in surprise, they saw that the waiter had returned to collect their now-empty plates.

"Um," Sky said. "Yeah, like that." He pulled out some cash from somewhere. "Here you go, this should pay for our bill plus a nice 'forget everything we said here' tip."

"Very good, sir," the waiter said politely, taking it and putting it away. "Would you like some dessert as well?"

"Oh, yes, that sounds nice."

* * *

The three of them spent the night in a room in the transcient building near the Gate Station, where temporary travellers to the outpost stayed. It wasn't particularly large or comfortable, having little more to it than the pair of bunks to sleep in, but by that point they didn't really care anyway.

The next morning, Sky and Smoke went out to the common area to find Digit already awake and drinking a cup of hot, black coffee. "Morning, Didge," Sky said as he came in to get a cup for himself. "What's up?"

"Just looking over the list I got of what books are known to be where and seeing where we should start," Digit replied. "I think we should start at the colony on planet Alexandria. The library there has three of the El'dari books in their holding, and should not prove too difficult to get at them."

"Sounds good to me," Sky said. "Let's grab a spot of breakfast and get going then."

After grabbing a quick breakfast of pancakes smothered in strawberries and maple syrup, the three of them headed for the Dream Gate and crossed over to Alexandria. This was a much larger colony than the tiny outpost on Tau Ceti IV, even larger than that on their homeworld of Sardinia, at least encompassing one sprawling city extending off in every direction until it petered off into wilderness. It didn't take long to rent a hovercar and climb inside.

"Okay, which way to the library?" Sky asked.

"I've input the destination into the car's computer," Digit said. "Just hit it and go."

The little hovercar buzzed over the city below and over toward the library in question. It was a massive, sprawling thing, taking up easily what would have been several city blocks as well as being several stories tall. They landed on a platform nearby and climbed out, starting off toward it.

"Just where in this building were they supposed to be?" Smoke asked. "I don't fancy wandering around lost for the rest of the day trying to find the things."

"They _do_ have a digital card catalog, you know," Digit said with a smirk.

Down into the library, up an elevator and down a hallway, they came upon a room with a sign outside that said "Rare Books Display - Do Not Touch Glass Or Remove Books From Cases". Inside the room, there were a number of old books sealed up tightly in locked transparent cases, each with labels in front of them or above them proclaiming what they were. There were copies of "The Wizard of Oz", "The Origin of Species", as well as what they were looking for... the three El'dari books, placed neatly in a row inside a case on the far side of the room, their covers marked in the runes that the ancient tree had shown them the secrets to.

"I suppose these aren't available for regular checkout," Sky said dryly.

"Just a moment," Digit murmured. "I've been working on getting into the computer system. Almost got it -- There!" She reached over and pulled the case open without a hitch, taking out the three books and passing off one to each of them. "Let's go, before somebody notices I hacked into their computer system."

Smoke chuckled softly as they headed for the door. "Digit, you're a genius."

"Oh, it was nothing," Digit replied. "They hadn't updated their computer systems in around twenty years, and the thing was so full of security holes that were filled in later patches that I'm not sure they'll notice it until somebody actually walks in here anyway."


	5. Skywalker Takes Up Arcane Knitting

After returning to Sardinia colony, primarily because it was safer as they knew that the Death Dancers were not likely to attack there again anytime soon, they settled into their house again for the moment to pore over the three books they had retrieved to look for anything immediately useful to them.

"These things are amazing," Skywalker commented as he browsed over one of them. "I think this is a description of how to make a bag of holding. We should try that out. It would certainly be more convenient than carting around a small library. Hey, Digit, can you knit?"

Digit glanced up at him with a smirk and a glare. "No, but you can."

An hour later, Skywalker was diligently knitting a rune-covered bag while Digit and Smoke continued to pore over the books. "I object to this situation on a manly level!" Sky said.

"Oh, but you sew so beautifully," Digit drawled with a smirk.

"I hate you," Sky said lightly as he continued working.

"Though, when you get done with that, we should probably go see about picking up a few more of the books along the way," Digit commented. "Since, after all, that's what we're supposed to be doing, as interesting as this data is."

"I can imagine plenty of this will come in handy, though," Smoke said. As it had turned out, the three books that they had acquired detailed information on various healing techniques, spacial distortion, and telekinesis, respectively. "At least, if we can manage to learn enough of it to be able to make fair use of it before the entire galaxy goes to hell, anyway."

"That's the real clincher, isn't it," Digit said. "We want to take several _years_ out to learn this stuff properly, but we simply don't have that time, so we're limited to what we can pick up and use right out of the box, so to speak."

"Like this stupid bag?" Sky muttered in irritation.

"Yup!" Digit replied cheerfully. "Very useful, although we'll want to test it first, of course, to make sure that whatever we put in it isn't going to just disappear or something, or permanently shrink, or suck us in and trap us until we suffocate inside a pocket dimension..."

Sky paused in his work to look up at her and glare at her witheringly. "You know, you really do a lot to inspire confidence in people."

"Anything to help. Besides, if anything goes wrong, that'd likely be because _you_ didn't do a good enough job on it," Digit said, smirking.

Skywalker grumbled some more, but continued to concentrate on his work as the two of them continued to read and absorb what they could, occasionally practicing minor techniques which the books described. Several hours and two meals later, he finally finished up with the bag. It was lumpy and a little lopsided, and the differently colored runes weren't always quite straight.

Smoke looked at the thing dubiously. "I'm not sure if this is going to work..."

"Well, it hasn't sucked in everything in sight yet, at least," Digit commented. "Let's try it out." She pulled out a pen from her pocket an slipped it inside the bag, then peered inside, reached inside, and pulled out the pen again. "Seems to work, so far as I can tell. Best put in something a bit bigger just to be sure, though."

Skywalker refrained from commenting on her slightly reckless 'testing', and simply stood back and watched as she proceeded to toss into the bag the pen again, an ash tray, a flashlight, a dildo, a coffee mug, a bottle of water, a pair of socks, and a snowglobe. Then she handed the bag back over to him.

"Umph," Sky said as he took it. "Well, it certainly _feels_ like you just put all that junk in here."

"Yeah, you noticed that too, huh?" Digit said. "If it were working properly, according to the El'dari notes here, it's supposed to make everything inside it completely weightless."

"That's going to be a minor issue," Sky said. "I guess I'll just have to carry it, then, since I'm the strong, manly, crocheting man here."

After checking through its contents to make sure that nothing had disappeared in the process, they emptied it out again and shoved the three El'dari books inside of it. "Hmm," Digit said. "We could put a few more supplies in there, too, though. I'm sure Sky won't mind carrying it all. Maybe some extra ammunition and weapons, some camping gear, a small refridgerator..."

Sky cast her a withering glare. "Let's just go grab the rest of the books that we can readily find before the Death Dancers get to it. I already look ridiculous enough carrying this thing that looks like a granny purse."

"Consider it a fashion statement," Digit said.

* * *

Although they didn't figure that all of the books would be quite so easy to obtain as the ones in the library on Alexandria had been, they did manage to collect two more of them from different places without much more trouble, these ones in particular detailing fire manipulation and plant growth.

They stopped back at home that night to look over them while Skywalker diligently, although not quietly, worked on some other runed objects. The next day, after a good rest, they set off to their next stop, a museum on one of the colony worlds.

"Is this James Bond shit really necessary?" Smoke muttered as they snuck around the place. It was currently the middle of the night, local time, and the colony was mostly quiet at the moment aside from activities going on in nearby nightclubs. "I feel ridiculous carrying this rope, too. Even if it _is_ a magic rope."

"Hey, don't dis my leet knitting skills," Skywalker protested. "I think I might be getting the hang of this sort of business, too. It's actually pretty neat. Well, even if the only yarn I could find was purple and pink."

"We are _so_ going to have to stop by a store before you go knitting me any caps or sweaters," Smoke said with a smirk.

"Shush, boys," Digit muttered as they came up to the museum entrance, locked and secured at this time of night. "Won't be so easy getting in here. They actually have decent security."

"Oh, that's a switch," Sky said dryly. "You'd think the GWs weren't all over the place for some of these places we've been in."

"Pull out the rope, we're going in through the roof," Digit said.

"Righto," Smoke said, uncoiling the rune-covered rope and tossing one end of it up toward the ledge above them. The length of yarn extended as it flew, then attached itself to a nondescript bit of roof. "At least you managed to do _that_ one right, anyway."

The three of them climbed up onto the roof without a hitch, then Smoke activated one of the runes which released the rope from its fixed position and caused it to shrink back to size again. He acted mildly surprised that it had worked properly, but then, they _had_ tested it before coming out here.

"This way," Digit whispered, leading them off across the roof toward the middle of the museum, where there was a skylight overlooking one of the larger, more spectacular displays: a faintly shimmering, smooth piece of architecture that was an artifact of an earlier age, and judging by the runes on it, they guessed that it also was El'dari in nature.

"How are we going to get through here?" Smoke murmured. "This stuff's transparent steel."

"Leave that to me," Digit said, creeping over toward one of the panels and getting to work on the edge of it. "Should be able to get through by just removing one of the panels... Here we go, I think this is -- whoops!"

The loosened clear panel swung open by one corner then broke free, falling to the museum floor far below and landing with a clatter next to the El'dari artifact. The three of them held their breath, expecting an alarm to go off, but the museum remained silent.

"Let's hope nobody noticed that," Smoke said, pulling out the rope again and snapping it loose to let them slide down into the museum.

Once they were on the floor, Digit took a few moments to take a closer look at the El'dari object. "Hmm, interesting," Digit said thoughtfully. "This appears to be a localized spacial ethereal tele--"

"Later, Digit," Sky interrupted. "We've gotta get that book before they realize we're here."

Only slightly miffed, Digit headed off down one of the corridors carefully, peering about as she looked from side to side as if trying to figure out which room it was being kept in. They nervously spent at least fifteen minutes searching around the place before they finally reached a locked door that looked like a likely candidate. Pulling out her tools again, Digit worked the door open and they stepped inside. Sure enough, among assorted other miscellaneous bits of galactic flotsam, there was the rune-covered El'dari book.

"Great, let's take it and get out of here," Sky said, reaching over to grab the book from behind its stand and shoving it into the bag. Smoke winced, expecting an alarm to go off any moment at that, but the museum remained ominously silent.

That didn't last, however, as they hadn't even gotten back to the center of the museum again before a group of armed, uniformed people appeared behind them, and shouted, "Freeze!"

"Fuck," Sky uttered.

"Come on!" Digit urged, breaking into a run back toward the atrium again. Skywalker and Smoke didn't know what she had in mind, but trusted her enough to just follow after her post-haste, dodging the stun weapons of the guards frantically as they went.

"What--" Sky wondered as they approached the artifact, but didn't manage to finish his sentence before Digit called up sparks of power around the artifact and it hummed to life, glowing and shimmering brightly.

"In!" Digit snapped, and as they reached it, a shimmering vortex surrounded them for a moment, the world faded from existence around them.


	6. The Cake Is a Lie

As the unexpected light and color faded from their eyes, the three of them found themselves sprawled out on a misty plain. There was no sign in sight of either the El'dari artifact or their pursuers. They appeared to be otherwise unharmed and intact, however.

"Ungh," Skywalker muttered, rubbing his eyes as he sat up to take a look around. "Where the fuck are we? What _was_ that thing?"

"Well, as I was trying to tell you before you so rudely interrupted me," Digit replied lightly. "I recognized it as some sort of teleportation device, perhaps a predecessor to the Dream Gates."

"So we're in the Dream World now?" Sky guessed. "Why didn't they just follow us, though?"

"I think the artifact only activated just long enough to bring us through," Digit said. "And they wouldn't know how to activate it themselves without knowing where the power rune was. Judging by the inherent complexity of the device, however, I imagine that it normally employed a control console or the like for general use, however I did not see one present, so it is likely that if there was one, it had been lost or destroyed at some point in the intervening time period."

Smoke stood up and brushed himself off. "Well, whatever it was, it worked apparently, although I think my arm's a bit numb from where one of them winged me."

"It'll wear off soon enough," Digit assured him. "Just be glad they were aiming like Stormtroopers. I don't think Sky would have appreciated carrying you through the gate."

Skywalker chuckled. "Okay, let's see about getting out of here. While I'm sure we're all acquainted with Dream World Wilderness Navigation 101, it would probably be easier to just call on our little goblin friend. Fizzik, Fizzik, Fizzik?"

Promptly, the little green goblin emerged from the shifting mists. "Ah, greetings, greetings!" Fizzik said. "Come right this way, quickly now, then we can talk, hush hush!"

The goblin led them off into the mists again, and they followed quietly, a bit confused about the matter, but not questioning him for a moment. Shortly, they arrived at a squat little house, painted bright red. Although for a moment they weren't sure just how they were going to get through the little door, nevermind all fit inside, that question immediately became apparent as the house got bigger as they approached... or they got smaller, seeing as Fizzik seemed to grow too.

"That's disorienting," Smoke commented wryly as they stepped inside. The little house was crowded with a wide variety of objects, from pots and pans, to clocks, gadgets, gizmos, toys, shoes, even a very ugly jack-in-the-box that sprang up in front of Smoke when he bumped into it by accident.

"Close the door behind you," Fizzik told them. "Got it? Okay, that's better. Now we can talk. Have you had any luck in finding the books?"

"We've gotten six of them so far," Skywalker said, indicating the knitted purse he had slung over his shoulder.

"That's great, that's great," Fizzik said. "Have you found out anything else about them?"

"Oh, yes," Digit said. "We've learned the language they're written in and have been working on deciphering them to make use of the abilities described in them. They have proven most helpful in locating and retrieving further books, as well."

"Very nice," Fizzik said. "And I'm sure you'll be happy to share them with me when you're done, too. Purely for curiosity reasons out of gratitude for my assistance, no doubt."

"Um," Digit said a bit dubiously, then shrugged faintly. "Right... Anyway, any chance you could get us to planet Calabria? That's the next place on my list to visit."

"Sure thing, not a problem, not a problem at all," Fizzik said. "Before you go, though, would you like some cake, perhaps?"

"No, no thank you," Digit said firmly, smirking at him. "There's much to be done and not a lot of time to do it in."

"Suit yourself," Fizzik said lightly, weaving his way through the junk and heading back for the door. "Come right this way, then."

The Garou followed him outside again, relaxing somewhat more as they grew back to their normal sizes once outside, and followed him off into the forest. At first there didn't seem to be any sort of path, but as they struck through, one materialized beneath their feet, winding through the woods and seeming to go in circles several times until finally emerging into a clearing with a faintly shimmering doorway standing between two trees.

"Here you go, Calabria, good luck, have fun, kids," Fizzik said, and vanished back into the woods without another word.

After glancing briefly to one another, the three of them stepped through the Dream Gate and emerged into a slightly panicked Gate Station, promptly getting several weapons pointing at them. Skywalker reached for his weapon, fearing that they'd already received word on their theft of the museum, unlikely as it might be, but Digit held up a hand to stop him.

"Freeze! Identify yourselves!" warned one of the Gate Watchers.

"Digit, Skywalker, and Second-Hand Smoke, of the Gate Watchers," Digit replied.

After confirming their identity shortly, they relaxed and lowered their weapons and let them through. "Sorry about that, we've just been getting really paranoid about unannounced visitors ever since the Death Dancer attacks started."

"Attacks? As in plural?" Digit said.

"Yeah, they hit the outpost on Fomalhaut has been hit," the Gate Watcher replied. "Wiped out the whole base, maybe even days ago, nobody noticed until somebody went there earlier to find the place in ruins. No survivors, so far as we know."

Digit blanched a bit. "That's awful."

Soberly, they headed out of the Gate Station and off into the colony town. Like many of the extrasolar colonies that had been set up in the wake of the Bug War, it boasted no more than one town on the entire planet, centered around the Gate Station, and not an especially large town either, albeit more than just a compact little outpost.

"So what are we looking for here?" Sky wondered quietly as they walked along the street away from the Gate.

"I'm hoping we'll be able to get this one without sneaking around or anything," Digit muttered. "I was wary about coming here earlier, but I think news of the attacks have spread far enough now to really get them thinking. This one's held by Gate Watchers."

"Gee, people who might actually have real security," Sky said dryly.

"Think we can convince them to just hand it over?" Smoke wondered. "And to get out of the way if and when the Death Dancers show up here?"

"Hopefully," Digit said.

They came to a large building, fairly nondescript from the outside, aside from some interesting technological implements affixed to the roof, and stepped inside. Although there had been no guards at the door, they could certainly feel being watched, and were quite certain that had they not been welcome here, they'd have probably already been shot. Some ways inside, they found a young woman sitting at a desk, legs propped up on top of it, absently filing her nails.

"Um, excuse me..." Digit said tentatively.

"Oh, hello there!" the woman said brightly, hopping to her feet to go over to greet them cheerfully. "Welcome, welcome, the name's Parody, what can I do for you?"

"Well--" Digit said.

Parody interrupted, "Oh, I'm sure you just wanted to see a tour of the place, didn't you? All the stuff that we're doing here is so very interesting. Particularly the latest innovations in multiphasic thermal inhibitors. With these, you'll never have to drink warm beer again! Admittedly, we still need to work out some of the minor details, such as the fact that the beer winds up completely frozen solid because of it, but never mind that. I'm sure that there's a great market for beersicles, anyway. You know, it's funny, but I didn't think alcohol would freeze like that, but maybe anything will freeze if you get it cold enough."

"No, Parody," Digit said, purposefully cutting in. "We need something you have here--"

"Not the multiphasic thermal inhibitors? Well, perhaps you were looking for--"

"No," Sky said firmly. "We need the old El'dari book. The alien artifact covered with runes nobody could decipher?"

"Oh!" Parody said. "Yeah, we've got that here. Don't know what you want with the thing, but our ethereal analyses indicated some very interesting enchantments around it. We considered attempting to use the design to construct armor or building materials, but couldn't easily back engineer enough of it to be useful. Those artifacts are the next thing to indestructible! What did you need with it? Did any progress with deciphering them come through that I haven't heard about yet?"

"That information is classified at the present time," Digit said enigmaticaly.

"Oooh, mysterious," Parody said. "Well, I'm not sure that I'm supposed to just hand it off to people, but I'm sure it'll be okay if I lend it to you for a while if you promise to bring it back when you're done with it!"

"We'll try to, anyway," Digit promised. "I'll make no guarentees if we get killed by Death Dancers along the way."

"Death Dancers?" Parody said as she led them down a hallway. "Well, I sure hope not. They aren't very friendly people at all. Here, it's right back in here, let me unlock the door for you, but don't touch anything else, you hear? There's super-secret experimental technology in here that hasn't been tested yet and might just blow you up!"

"Don't worry," Skywalker said as he stepped into the room, snatched up the rune-covered book, and shoved it into his purse without even bothering to translate the title first to see what it was about.

"Now, are you sure you didn't want to see the multiphasic thermal inhibit--" Parody began, only to trail off, staring off into space.

"What is it?" Sky asked as he stepped outside of the room, raising an eyebrow at her.

"The Gate Station is under attack," Parody said, eyes widening. "The Death Dancers have come here!"

"Oh fuck."


	7. Clash at the Gate Station

Skywalker carelessly tossed the book bag back toward Digit and pulled out a gun as he headed for the door, loading it up with silver. Smoke took his cue and followed after him, doing the same.

"Sky! Smoke!" Digit called back to them urgently. "There's probably too damned many of them!"

"Run away if you want, then," Sky snarled. "But I'm not going to let them rampage unchecked through another colony!"

Digit and Parody trailed on behind them as they headed outside and to the Gate Station. There was a concerted battle going on there, and it appeared that the Death Dancers had not yet broken past the defenses. Skywalker shifted form as he approached the entrance, growing much larger and more muscular and sprouting a thick coat of snow white fur. Smoke did likewise, although his fur was a shaggy gray instead.

They burst through the doors to find the interior of the Gate Station in shambles, many of the Gate Watchers wounded or dying on the floor, equipment broken, and mad Death Dancers severely outnumbering their opposition. Skywalker and Smoke growled and began to fire into the crowd of mad Garou, hoping to even the odds a bit. Several of the Dancers turned their attention toward their new opposition, swarming over toward them viciously.

Digit approached from the opposite side of the Gate Station, circling around to the other side door, and stepped through. She didn't bother changing form, instead tracing complex runes in the air with her fingers and concentrating on the power of the El'dari magic. Fire burst from the air and ripped through the attacking Death Dancers, scorching them and knocking a couple of them to the ground immediately. Some of them turned toward her to attack her as well, only to be hurled into the air with another rune.

Parody popped off a few shots into the attackers as well, although for the most part was staring wide-eyed at what Digit was doing. Although Digit's selection of spells was crude and limited, she was still able to wreck havoc upon the attackers and force the remainder of them back through the Dream Gate.

Once all the Death Dancers still present in the Gate Station were no longer moving, Digit stepped over to the fallen Gate Watchers in concern, quickly tracing healing runes over some of them to speed their recovery. Some of the Garou were beyond her help, though, one of them even having his head ripped entirely from his body. Digit looked away at the sight and focused her attention instead upon those who were still alive.

"Holy shit," muttered one of the Gate Watchers who was still standing and conscious. "Thanks for the hand, kids. I don't know what we would have done without your help. And just where _did_ you learn those things, girl?"

"That's a bit of a long story," Digit said, peering over toward the Gate again to make sure that the Death Dancers who had escaped weren't running to get reinforcements. Smoke and Skywalker shifted back into homid form and came over, however keeping their guns warily trained on the Dream Gate.

"Well, have it. I'm not planning on going anywhere anytime soon."

"Alright," Digit said, taking a deep breath and turning to start work on repairing one of the damaged consoles as she explained. "The Death Dancers are searching for the El'dari books. That is, the Tau Ceti books. At least one of them has found a way to decipher them, and so have we. They're getting through the Dream Gate network with the cooperation of the Unseelie, to whom they promised the books when they were done. We've been trying to collect what books we can to keep them out of their hands."

The other Gate Watchers stared at her for several long moments as the implications of her words sank in. "Shit, this _is_ big. How many of the books have you gotten so far? And how the hell did you get them, anyway? They're all locked up under tight security." He smirked at her.

"We have seven of them," Digit replied. "And yes, we snuck in and stole most of them. We didn't exactly think most people were likely to just take our word on it and hand them over readily. Especially the ones in the hands of rich collectors and the like who don't even have half a clue what they have."

"You're probably right about that, but still," the Gate Watcher said, shaking his head with a smirk. "I'm sure that plenty of people, though, would be happy to assist if you let them know what was going on."

"Well, yeah, that's what we did here," Digit said. "I'll be damned if I was going to try to butt heads with other Gate Watchers over it. But make no mistake, we _will_ go to whatever lengths are necessary to keep these books out of the hands of the Death Dancers and their Unseelie allies."

"Understandably. Given the circumstances, the question of returning them or otherwise compensating their current owners will need wait until the immediate threat is taken care of."

Digit straightened and turned away from the half-repaired console, handing off the book bag to Skywalker again. "We'll be heading out again to try to retrieve more of the books before they have a chance to regroup and attack more colonies."

"Good luck. Hopefully they won't return here after this defeat..."

"Wait! I want to go with you!" interjected Parody abruptly.

Digit, Smoke, and Skywalker looked toward her dubiously. "Are you sure? This is going to be dangerous, you know. And we have no idea just how long this is going to take or when we might be back this way."

"Positive. I'm sure you wouldn't mind the help, plus it would be really cool to learn some of those tricks you were using!"

Skywalker rolled his eyes and sighed reluctantly. He really wasn't sure if he liked the girl, and quietly thought that she would prove more of a hindrance than a help, but he wasn't about to refuse her out of hand. "Fine, fine. But let's get going now, we don't have any time to waste. Who knows where those Death Dancers might be attacking next, or for that matter just how many of them are behind this all? Digit, what's our next target?"

"The base on Antares VII," Digit replied, glancing aside to the Gate Watchers as if in hint that they should send the base a message ahead so that they didn't panic when they arrived. At least enough of the equipment was still intact to manage such mundane details.

"Go on ahead, they'll be ready and waiting for your arrival," said one of the Gate Watchers after a moment. Digit nodded to him, and the four of them stepped through the Dream Gate.

* * *

"My lord," said the messenger nervously. "Our forces have failed to retrieve the book from Calabria colony."

Jez'kai put aside the El'dari book he was perusing to look over to the young messenger. It had been proving a very interesting read, and offered many insights into a number of matters of interest, but there was still much of it that he had yet to absorb. "Failed?" he asked. "Was the book not where it was supposed to be?"

"No, sir. We were defeated at the Gate Station by a group of Gate Watchers. Reinforcements showed up midway through the battle, and one of them was using strange powers we've never seen before. She was waving her hands around and throwing fire at us, and hurling us into walls with invisible hands..."

"Most intriguing," Jez'kai murmured, standing from his desk and moving to pace about the office, hands behind his back. "Could it be that they have also discovered the ancient secrets of the El'dari?"

"It's entirely possible, but I would not be one to speculate," the other werewolf said uneasily.

"Tell the others to move on to the next target," Jez'kai said. "It will be the base on Rigel IV, if you have forgotten that as well as failing me."

The young man glanced up in surprise, his face suddenly hopeful. "My lord? You will forgive me for my failure?"

"Who said anything about forgiving you?" Jez'kai said lightly, his lips twitching into the faint prospect of a grin. "Once the others have been sent on their way, report to Shayah for your punishment. I'm sure she will be quite pleased at the prospect. She has been so dreadfully bored around here lately without anyone to play with, after all."

The other Death Dancer's face fell and he blanched at the thought in dread. He swallowed hard and replied uneasily, "Yes, my lord." He scrambled to his feet and headed for the door.

Jez'kai shook his head with a sigh and returned to his seat, murmuring to himself, "It's so hard to get good help these days." These troublesome Gate Watchers would need to be dealt with, that much was certain, but for the moment, he settled himself to obtaining the books that he could before they did. There were so many secrets tucked between these rune-covered pages, just waiting to be unveiled. It was a pity that he would not be able to hear the young man's sweet screams through the soundproof walls of their headquarters when Shayah got her hands on him.


	8. Parody's Pink Elephants and Porn

Skywalker had been more than a little reluctant to share the knowledge of El'dari magic with Parody, although primarily because he found her annoying, but Digit had no such compunctions. Sky thought it was primarily because Digit hoped to get laid with her, but kept his thoughts about that to himself.

Even as they were sitting back at home after picking up three more of the El'dari books, Parody sat in the living room testing out various runes in the air, swirling her fingers about frantically as she stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth in a comical manner. A gust of wind upended the lamp, and the pizza box burst into blue flames.

"Parody, will you _please_ stop it already?" Skywalker said as he batted at the weird flames futily, then tried to salvage the remaining slices of pizza instead.

"But this is so much fun!" Parody said brightly, swishing her hands about again and causing the holo-screen to flicker to life for a few moments with snatches of a news broadcast about a recent attack on Rigel IV by rampaging Death Dancers.

"Oh, for love of Gaia, why did we let you come along, anyway?" Skywalker muttered irritably, dumping the remaining slices of pizza onto a plate and shoving it into the fridge. "Look, Parody, this is _our_ house, and if you make a mess here, _you're_ going to have to clean it up, okay? Go outside or something if you really want to play around with the rune spells, but do please refrain from breaking everything in the house already."

"Oh, fine," Parody said, a little bit miffed as she headed for the door to step inside.

Sky sighed and turned an eye to Digit as he slumped down into a chair and lit up a cigarette. "Why did we bring her along again?"

"Don't look at me. You're the one who agreed to it," Digit replied with a smirk.

"Point," Sky said. "But still. What was I thinking? The girl's a nuisance. It's a wonder we managed to even get those books with her along."

"Not really," Digit said. "The Gate Watchers handed them over to us quite readily once we explained the situation, after all."

"Still," Sky said. "And I'm not exactly entirely comfortable with her flinging around phenomenal cosmic power without any repurcussions, either. This is ridiculous."

"It bears the question of just what we're going to do with this information once the immediate crisis is over with," Digit mused. "We can't exactly keep the information to ourselves, no matter how powerful and dangerous it is, and I imagine that higher ranking Gate Watchers might be a little bit annoyed about us trying to keep secrets like this from them too. However, it's certainly a dangerous power in that it's very easy to learn to do basic things with it given the information, plenty enough to cause an awful lot of damage."

"I can't say that's really my concern just now," Sky said. "And I'd much rather have the Gate Watchers have this knowledge than the Death Dancers, that's for sure. At least the Gate Watchers aren't trying to take over or destroy the galaxy, or at least run around wantonly raping and killing whoever they feel like. Personally, I'm just as happy leaving it up to somebody older and wiser than me to decide what to do with this knowledge. It ain't my business and it ain't my place."

"You have a point, to be sure," Digit conceded. "Although by that argument, shouldn't we leave it to somebody else older and wiser than us to collect the books and secure them, too?" She smirked at him.

There was the muffled sound of a loud crash from outside. Sky stood up, muttering, "What the fuck did that crazy chick do this time?" He shoved his cigarette into the ash tray and stalked outside irritably to see just what Parody had gotten herself into.

He stopped and stared in surprise as he saw a medium-sized pink elephant sitting on top of their flattened hovercar. It looked over toward him and trumpeted, stepping around in circles a bit and further crushing the vehicle beyond all hope of repair. Parody was just kind of staring at it, blinking slowly.

"Um... Sorry?" Parody said hesitantly.

"Parody..." Skywalker stammered. "That-- was-- my-- car!"

"I said I'm sorry!" Parody insisted, waving her hands in front of herself frantically as if to ward off Sky's wrath, but at least not trying to cast anything else.

"I'm not even going to ask just how you managed to summon a pink elephant," Sky said. "That was my car! You destroyed my car!"

"Um... I'll make it up to you! I promise!" Parody said hastily.

"Okay, how?" he said with deliberate patience. "I'm listening."

"Well, how about blowjobs? Doggystyle? Anal? Toys? Bondage?"

Sky stared at her for several moments, but she seemed to be sincere. "Okay, fine, come inside and you can convince me just how sorry you really are."

* * *

"So, what are we going to do with the pink elephant?" Digit wondered to Smoke, peering out the window. She tried to ignore the interesting sounds coming from Skywalker's bedroom.

"I have no idea," Smoke said. "Put a saddle on it and use it to replace the car?"

"Well, at least then we'd be able to take it through the Gates," Digit said. "But I rather doubt that it's nearly as fast."

"On the upside, it would run on peanuts."

From the direction of the hallway, they could hear the muffled sounds of a whip cracking, and Sky's voice saying, "Are you sorry yet? How sorry are you?"

Digit grumbled a bit to herself, and said, "And he complains about _me_ not supplying videos?"

Smoke added, "Man, I was a hell of a lot quieter than that, wasn't I?"

"You could hardly hear a peep," Digit said. "Hmm, I wonder if she's bi..."

Smoke smirked. "Why, do you want to whip her into submission too?"

"Oh, I'm not really into that sort of thing," Digit said. "Although I'll hardly complain if she happens to like nice fuzzy handcuffs."

"Right..." Smoke muttered.

He went to pull out one of the El'dari books to flip through it a bit more absently, trying to avoid getting too distracted by the noise from the next room. After a couple of minutes of that, however, he sighed and closed the book again and headed outside, plopping himself down on the curb near the elephant and trying to read from there instead. That particular effort shortly found itself being distracted by the pink elephant reaching over with its trunk to try to grab at the pages.

"Hey, leave that alone!" Smoke snapped, pulling the book away from it. They might have claimed that the book was indestructible, but he really didn't care to test that theory just now. "Okay, fine, you want something to eat? I'll get you something to eat, then. What the fuck do pink elephants eat, anyway? Pink peanuts?"

Gathering up the book again, Smoke headed back into the house, ignoring Parody's screams of pain and pleasure as he went to the kitchen and grabbed a bag of peanuts and a beer. Heading back outside, he opened the beer and scattered some of the nuts on the ground, then sat them both down on the sidewalk. Smoke watched in amusement as the pink elephant munched up some of the peanuts, then grabbed the beer can with its trunk and carefully guided it to its mouth to drink without spilling a drop. Then it sat down the empty can again and let out a resounding belch.

"You know, I'm not entirely certain that this is normal elephant diet or physiology..." Smoke said with a smirk. "Can elephants even belch? Well, okay, admittedly, this one just did, but considering it's a bizarre pink hue, I'm not going to attribute it as being a normal elephant. Okay, great, now I'm talking to myself. Let's just pretend that I'm talking to the elephant. Okay, admittedly, talking to a pink elephant isn't really much better than talking to myself..."

He could swear that the elephant was laughing softly at him. Shaking his head a bit, he patted the elephant on the trunk lightly and went back inside.

"You fed the elephant beer and peanuts?" Digit wondered, raising an eyebrow.

"And it ate them, too! It must be, like, a magic elephant or something."

"What was your first clue? Besides the fact that it's, you know, pink," Digit pointed out.

"Are they done in there yet?" Smoke asked. "I don't hear anything." Then there was a sound of Parody screaming as if in orgasm. "Never mind."

"I'm sure they'll be done soon enough. Skywalker never did have much stamina, for a Garou."

"And how do _you_ know this?" Smoke said, casting her a wry look. "I thought you were a dyke."

Digit chuckled and grinned a bit, and refrained from answering. "So, did you come across anything interesting in that book, or were you too busy feeding the elephant?"

"Now wait a minute, don't change the subject on me here," Smoke replied. "What did you do, sleep with Skywalker too or something and not tell me?"

"No," Digit told him. "Not that I exactly advertise all my sexual exploits to you anyway. But you know, these walls really aren't very soundproof."

"Point," Smoke said. "And no, I was entirely too distracted by the pink elephant to get much actual reading done, I'm afraid. And I'm entirely too distracted by the porn studio next door here to get much reading done in here."

"I wonder if he's going to let us watch the video. I mean, he's always complaining about me not offering videos, he should at least put his money where his mouth is."

"I'm not sure that I'd care to watch, assuming he's even recording it," Smoke replied.

"Why not?"

"I'd wind up wincing every time he cracked that whip."


	9. This Is Called Blatant Foreshadowing

Shayah sauntered into Jez'kai's office, making little effort to disguise the blatantly seductive sway of her hips. Her long, blonde hair rippled down her shoulders in luxurious cascades, over the straps of her skimpy black dress that left little to the imagination. As attractive as most people generally found her, thought, her mere presense was not enough to grab Jez'kai's attention away from the El'dari book he was delving into at the moment.

"Master?" Shayah said tentatively, leaning a hip against his desk in a casual pose.

"Yes, Shayah?" Jez'kai wondered, not bothering to look up at her.

Shayah was a little miffed about his lack of attention, but let it pass. Her Master must be quite interested in what he was reading if it were proving more interesting than she was, she reasoned. "I do so hate to interrupt, since I'm sure you're quite busy lately, but I was wondering if you will allow me to leave the headquarters in the near future? I'm sure that I could be quite helpful in your search for these books, and I can be far more subtle about it than those brutes you're sending through the Dream Gates."

Jez'kai finally reluctantly set aside his reading material for the moment and looked up at her, his lips quirking as he spared a moment to admire her beauty. "Mm, no, Shayah, my dear, I think that I have a much better purpose for you at the moment," he replied with a small grin.

"Oh?" Shayah said, cocking her head toward him with interest.

"Yes, you see, at the last planet that was attacked, my minions swarmed the Gate and slaughtered all opposition in their path, only to discover that the book they were searching for was not even present," Jez'kai said. "There appears to be one or more Gate Watchers who have been swiping the books right out from under the noses of whoever was keeping them before before my minions can get to them."

"And you need them dealt with?" Shayah said, grinning a little herself in anticipation of putting her skills to good use.

"Oh, yes," Jez'kai replied. "Catching them off-guard and killing them would probably not prove too much for you, provided you can get through the Dream Gates undetected and locate where they're hiding out. Stealing the books from them would be most beneficial to me as well. However, it would be so much more useful to have them on my side instead..."

"You wish for them to be captured alive then, Master?" Shayah asked.

"An equitable solution, if it proves feasable, however, I was hoping for something even more subtle than that, if you think you can pull it off," Jez'kai said. "Corrupt them. Get into their good graces, make them trust you, and lead them straight into my waiting claws."

Shayah was never one to claim that such a thing could not be done, especially when Jez'kai asked it of her. "It shall surely be done, then, Master."

"If it's not feasable, just kill them and bring me the books," Jez'kai said. "And you will have still succeeded in your primary mission. However, a very special reward will be yours if you can succeed at bringing them into my fold..." He grinned broadly at her.

* * *

More for sheer amusement value than anything else, Digit saddled up the pink elephant and bribed it with another can of beer, and the four Garou climbed aboard it to ride to the ruins of the Gate Station. Much to their surprise, however, once it realized where they wanted to go, a set of wide, feathered pink wings burst from the elephant's sides and it took to the air.

"Wait, a _flying_ pink elephant?" Smoke said. "What the fuck?"

"Don't complain, just hold on," Digit said. "And ignore the fact that those wings are much too small to be physically able to lift its own weight, nevermind ours too."

Their rather unique mode of transportation covered the ground quite quickly, and they arrived at the Dream Gate shortly thereafter, ignoring the stares of various quite confused passersby along the way. There were a few Gate Watchers that had arrived from elsewhere that were currently manning what was left of the station and getting things back into order again after the attack.

The Garou currently managing the makeshift console stared up at them as they landed. "You guys... are riding a flying pink elephant."

"Yes, we are," Digit replied blithely. "Don't ask. Just... don't ask."

"Right... Where are you heading?"

"Planet Manhattan," Digit said.

"And you're taking that-- that thing-- through with you?" the Gate Watcher said. "I don't think the rules about no large technological objects apply to flying pink elephants."

"Yep," Digit said. "Don't think it'll have any trouble fitting through, anyway. The Gate's plenty big enough."

"Alright, you're clear to go. Although however big the doors are, I'm not sure that the Manhattan Gate Station is going to like having a freaking pink elephant trampling around. I hope you've got that thing trained so it doesn't dump a load in the middle of the floor."

Digit wasn't so sure about that, or just what kind of load a pink elephant might dump out unexpectedly. At the moment she'd hardly be surprised if it farted butterflies. Shaking her head a bit, she guided the elephant through the Gate and into the Dream World.

The people staffing the Gate Station on planet Manhattan definitely did not know quite what to make of their strange mount, even though the one on Sardinia had notified them of what to expect. After causing a fair bit of a stir, however, they were let through to head out into the large colony town. Digit was grateful that they had generally make a point to not surround the Dream Gates with buildings that large objects could not be gotten through if necessary. Not that such was usually necessary, given the Fae's ban on bringing through any technological object larger than they could readily carry, but still.

This particular El'dari book was being kept in a Gate Watcher warehouse on the opposite edge of town. Digit winced slightly to herself as she thought of what destruction would be wrecked upon the city should the Death Dancers attack here, cutting a swath of bloodshed all the way through the middle of town.

"Excuse me," Digit said to one young Gate Watcher who was currently outside packing boxes onto a truck. He dropped what he was carrying with a crash when he saw the pink elephant.

"Wha... What?" he stammered.

"We require the old book from Tau Ceti that's currently being stored here," Digit told him. "The Death Dancers are--"

"I don't really care what the Death Dancers are doing," the young Garou said. "I'm not going to argue with anyone riding a flying pink elephant. I'll be right back."

Digit smirked broadly in amusement as the man dashed back into the warehouse, to return moments later with the book in hand. He unceremoniously tossed it up toward them, and Skywalker snatched it out of the air and shoved it into his bag.

"Do try to avoid trampling my... ah, shit, I think I broke it..." the young man muttered as he looked over his box, gathering it up again.

"Sorry about that," Digit said, and turned their elephant back toward the Gate again.

"Why do I have this feeling that this is going to become a fairly common reaction if we keep this up?" Skywalker said dryly. "And whatever possessed you to saddle up and fly a pink elephant? Okay, clearly, this isn't happening. I'm drunk. I'm dreaming. I'm going to wake up any minute now and I'll be in my bed again, next to the supple, naked form of a sexy girl..."

Digit reached over and whapped him upside the head. "You're not dreaming, dork."

"Ow! Hey!" Sky said, rubbing his head. "Okay, for a dream that sure hurt. I still haven't figured out just _how_ Parody managed to summon a pink elephant, either, though."

"Me either," Parody said. "I really wasn't trying to, honest! It just kind of, well, happened."

"How can it just kind of happen?" Sky said. "How is that even possible? I thought you had to have some clue just what you were trying to do or the El'dari rune magic just wouldn't work. Otherwise you'd just be able to wave your hands around and by chance you might stumble upon a rune, but it doesn't work that way!"

"How the hell should I know?" Parody wondered. "Maybe Pinky here just really wanted to come along! I don't know."

"Whatever," Skywalker said, cocking his head and looking down at the flying pink elephant thoughtfully. "What's our next stop, Didge? You're the one with the flight plan here."

"Think we're starting to exhaust the easy ones now," Digit said. "But there's one more we can hit that shouldn't be too much trouble. Let's head to planet Bikini."

"Oh, yay!" Skywalker said. "I can't wait. I've always wanted to visit there. All the scantily clad girls, rawr. More skin than a porno mag."

"Um, Sky," Digit said. "They used it as a site for various experimental technological testing and things went awry, remember? Everyone has to wear full body suits and breathing apparati when outdoors."

"Damn it!" Sky said. "You have to take all the fun out of things with reality, don't you. Okay, where are we going to find an environment suit big enough for an elephant?"

"The main complex is underneath a shielded dome. We won't need to go outside of that anyway."

"So why don't they wear bikinis when inside the dome, then?" Skywalker said. "It's not fair, I tell you. Totally not fair. You can't call it something like Bikini and then not make good on that promise!"

"Quit whining, we're almost there."


	10. Temptress Who Doesn't Really Need To Tempt Very Hard

"You know," Sky commented. "While this flying pink elephant thing is kind of convenient for getting from place to place, it's really not particularly useful for covering up our tracks when we actually need to sneak into something."

"Minor details," Digit replied dismissively as she landed the elephant in an empty playground and slid from its back, shortly followed by the others. "Everyone remember where we parked."

Smoke tossed a bag of peanuts and set a six-pack of beer on the ground near the elephant before heading off after Digit. Their current destination was another library, although not nearly so large or notable a one as the library of Alexandria. It was local night, and the streets were darkened except for the occasional streetlamp.

"Are you sure it'll stay where we put it?" Sky wondered.

"Why not?" Smoke replied. "It's getting free food and beer, after all."

They came up to the entrance to the library and tried the door, but it swung open right away. "Hmm, door's unlocked," said Digit quietly. "Maybe this will be easier than I thought."

After taking a few steps inside, she paused in her footsteps as she noticed there were lights on further in. She held up a hand to indicate the others to stay put and creeped along closer to take a look quietly. Inside, there was a blond woman with glasses, dressed conservatively, hauling along a cart of books and putting them back in their places. For a moment Digit thought they might have to contend with her in some way, but a quick scan indicated that she was a shapeshifter. She gestured to the others to approach.

Digit cleared her throat politely. "Excuse me--"

"Oh!" the woman said, jumping in surprise and upturning her cart, books scattering everywhere.

"Sorry," Digit said, leaning over to help pick them up again. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's the middle of the night," the woman said. "I didn't think anyone was going to be around here. What are you doing here?"

"Well, it's something of a long story," Digit replied. "But suffice it to say that we're trying to collect the Tau Ceti books in order to keep them out of the hands of the Death Dancers. My information says that one of them is in this library?"

"Oh, my, the Death Dancers?" said the woman, wide-eyed. "Well, of course I'll help, if I can. I don't know where they put it, though. Maybe it's in the back somewhere. Come on this way, we can see if we can find it."

Following after her as she led the way off down the aisles of books, Skywalker said, "Hey, baby, what's your name?"

She glanced back at him for a moment, blushing a bit, and said, "Call me Shayah."

"Shayah?" Skywalker said. "That's a pretty name."

"Sounds like a scream of pain to me," Smoke added.

"Oh, come on, be nice," Sky said.

Shayah blushed a bit more as they came to a closed door at the far side of the main room of the library, with a sign attached to it which read 'Authorized Personnel Only'. "It might be in here," she said. "But I'm afraid they didn't give me the keys to this part of the building, so I'm not sure."

"That's okay," Digit said, going up to bring out her own tools and fiddle with the lock. "I can probably get it open anyway."

"You know," Sky said. "I'm not sure if I should ask where you learned about lockpicking or decided to take it up as a hobby."

"Oh, come on, it's just a simple lock, not even a high tech one," Digit replied with a smirk. "Just a simple mechanical device involving tumblers and--"

"Yes, I'm sure," Sky interrupted. "Never mind, okay? I don't want to know."

"Yeah, like we haven't had to break into a bunch of other places already anyway?"

"Nope, not going to get into it," Sky said. "I think I'll just stand back here and hang out with Shayah." He leaned over near her and brazenly put an arm around her waist, causing her to jump a bit in surprise and blush again.

"Oh!" Shyaah said, shifting uneasily.

"Hey, baby, what do you say you come back to my place for a bit of fun when we're done here, huh?"

"Skywalker, stop thinking with your dick," Digit said as she finally got the door open. "There we go."

The room beyond the locked door was dusty and old, and hadn't looked like anyone had actually been back there in quite some time. Coughing a bit at the stirred dust, Digit stepped inside and poked around a bit, ignoring Skywalker's blatant flirting behind her. Sifting through several old boxes, she finally held up a rune-covered book, looking none the worse for wear for its having been forgotten in this dusty corner.

Digit walked over to Skywalker and shoved the book into his bag while passing by him. "We've got what we came for, let's go," she said.

"Can I bring along a souvenir, too?" Sky said, with a not so innocent grin.

Digit sighed. "If she really wants to come."

"Oh, I'd be delighted at the invitation," Shayah said. "It's so dreadfully dull here working nights at this library."

"You know this is going to be dangerous," Digit pointed out. "We could all very well get ourselves killed if we have a bad run-in with the Death Dancers."

"That's alright," Shayah said. "I could very well get killed by staying here too if the Death Dancers decide to attack here to find that book, couldn't I?"

Digit couldn't argue her logic. "Alright then, come along if you want, our transportation is parked in the playground down the street."

Back at the park, the pink elephant was still present, surrounded by empty beer cans and bits of peanut shells. It also appeared to have been amusing itself with a swingset, and had caused a fair amount of property damage in the process.

"That... is an elephant," Shayah stuttered. "A purple elephant."

"Well, it's really more pink in good lighting," Digit said.

"You rode in here on a pink elephant?"

"Yep," Digit replied. "Don't ask. Climb on if you really want to come along still." She went to climb up onto the elephant's back herself, shortly followed by Smoke, Skywalker, and Parody.

"If you say so," Shayah said, giving a shrug and hauling herself up behind Skywalker, much to his delight, and put her arms around him.

"Everyone all settled? Hold on tight, you don't want to fall off once we're airborne, because that might hurt a bit."

"Airborne?" Shayah said, although with hardly a moment to spare before the elephant spread its wings and took to the skies. "Oh my!"

"Yes, this is a _flying_ pink elephant," Digit said dryly. "Just don't ask."

"Well, you can ask, but we probably don't know either," Sky said lightly.

They arrived back at home in short order and Skywalker brought out the bag of books to examine what new additions they'd made to their repertoire. Shayah peered over toward them curiously and said, "Wait, you've learned how to decipher them?"

"That's right," Digit said. "And Parody is not allowed to summon anymore pink elephants, either."

Parody insisted, "It was totally an accident, I swear."

"Summoning pink elephants?" Shayah said, eyes widening. "What sort of things can you normally do with them?"

"Lots of stuff," Digit said. "From throwing fire in the air to making bags that hold way more than they'd normally be able to. It's really been proving quite versitile."

"Very nice," Shayah said, clearly looking fairly impressed. "Would you, possibly, be willing to teach me some of it as well, maybe? If you're not trying to keep it all a tight secret anyway, I mean, I'd understand if you were, but I'm really curious about it..."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll need to know the meanings of the runes, first, and you don't appear to have any implants," Digit said. "Not a Gate Watcher I take it? You are a Garou though. Which tribe are you? I suppose it doesn't really matter."

"I'm afraid I don't have any implants," Shayah said. "Does that matter? Old languages have always been a particular interest of mine, you see..."

The way she was leaning close, Digit could well see good reason for Skywalker's attraction to her, as she found the woman quite attractive herself. "Well, I'm sure something might be able to be arranged..." Digit said, glancing up over her shoulder into a clear view of the other woman's cleavage.

"Really?" Shayah said, looking interested and excited. "Would you do that for little old me? Well, if it's not too much trouble, after all, I'd hate to interfere with the whole saving the universe business..."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, really," Digit said. "I really ought to work through a document with proper translations when I get time, but for the moment it shouldn't be too much trouble to just transfer the raw data into a datapad where you can read it. It doesn't have the convenience of being able to look them up on a fly, as then you'll have to actually learn and memorize them, but it should still get the job done well enough. Will that work?"

"That would be simply wonderful," Shayah said, beaming at her.

Digit pulled out an extra datapad from a drawer and transfered the information from her implants into it. "Here you go. It's a bit rough still, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask."

Shayah took the datapad and looked over the information, and said, "Oh, this is great. If there's anything else I can do for you to thank you, do feel free to ask." Although the offer sounded innocent enough, the cock of her head and the coy twist of the tone made other implications rather clear.

Digit cleared her throat lightly. "I'm sure something might come to mind," she said. "I'm afraid that we only have three bedrooms here, though, so somebody's going to have to double up or sleep on the couch."

"Oh, sleeping on the couch is so dreadfully uncomfortable," Shayah replied. "I'm sure I wouldn't mind sharing."

After a brief argument on sleeping arrangements, Parody wound up heading in with Smoke, and Shayah with Digit, leaving Skywalker to go to bed alone and slightly dejectedly grumbling to himself. Of course, a passing kiss from Shayah and an undisguised promise of the future left him feeling rather more optimistic.


	11. Things Are Never Quite That Easy

"Okay, so we're getting to the point where the remaining El'dari books are the ones which nobody is quite sure just where they disappeared to," Digit said. "Either us or the Death Dancers have grabbed most of the ones whose locations were fairly certain so far. If it's any reassurance though, unless they've managed to dig up a lot of those unknowns, we probably have gotten more of them, anyway."

"Well, I haven't heard of any reports of attacks on places that didn't have books we knew about," Sky said, puffing on a cigarette absently. "So most likely they're working off the same information we are. So how are we going to find the remaining ones, then? I'm not sure that a listing of a last known location being somewhere on one world or another will help as much as we might like."

"We have a bit of an edge in that, I think," Digit said, giving a small grin. "Did you see the subject matter of the last book we picked up?"

"No, I was too busy boinking Shayah," Sky said, shifting the blonde woman's weight on his lap. "What was it about?"

"Yes, and we could hear you from the other side of the house," Smoke muttered dryly.

Digit smirked broadly and held aloft the book in question. "Right here. This will be our key."

"What is it?" Sky asked, peering over in her direction. "I can't read it from over here."

"It says, 'Divination'," Digit replied.

"Divination?" Sky repeated.

"Yes. You know, foretelling the future, gaining insight?" Digit said. "Although, the actual El'dari word has less of a connotation of seeing the future and more of just finding things in general, gaining knowledge, information, and the like. But 'Divination' was the best translation I could come up with."

"Great," Sky said. "So, what, you can just flip open that book and wave your hands and find out exactly where all the rest of the books are, or what?"

"Well, no, it's not quite that easy, I'm afraid." Digit smirked.

"Of course not, it never is," Sky said dryly. "Silly me, thinking that things were actually going to be easy for a change."

"They have been pretty easy," Digit pointed out. "The books we've gotten so far weren't particularly hard to obtain by and large, and we haven't had too many run-ins with Death Dancers along the way either."

"Yeah, yeah. So how is this magic finding book going to help us, then, if it can't tell us just where all the books are at?"

"There's spells that can tell you the direction something is in," Digit said. "Others that can tell the distance. Those, of course, require actually being on the same planet as the object in question or they won't give very useful information. There's also other spells called 'scrying' which can apparently give an image of the area around the object. Which, in itself, is probably not very useful if it's buried, in a dark room, or something."

"Well, shit, between those we shouldn't have any trouble finding the things anyway," Sky said.

"I was also thinking that we should think about splitting up in order to cover ground more quickly and get the things before the Death Dancers do," Digit said. "Since nobody's certain just where the remaining books are, there's less of a chance of inadvertently running into hostile Death Dancers."

"What, going to summon another pink elephant for the other team?" Sky said with a smirk.

"I'm sure relying on conventional transportation won't kill you," Digit replied dryly. "What do you say, myself, Smoke, and Parody in team A, and you and Shayah in team B?"

"Sounds good to me," Skywalker said, squeezing Shayah fondly. "Pass on over those spells and I'm sure we'll have a fine time."

"Yeah, and you should actually try to find the books, too, and not just have sex," Digit said. "Maybe I should send Parody along just to make sure."

"Oh, come on, I'm not _that_ easily sidetracked," Sky said. "Really now. Besides, it's phenomenal cosmic power. That beats porn anyday, right? Hmm, no, come to think, that's kind of a tossup... nah, definitely beats the porn."

"You? Think something is better than porn?" Smoke said in mock surprise. "Better check his vital signs, I think he's getting sick."

Skywalker rolled his eyes. "Is there any kind of contest? I mean, with phenomenal cosmic power, you can get all the porn you want anyway."

"Okay, I suppose that's a good point," Smoke replied.

Sky gently slid Shayah off his lap and stood up, stretching a bit. "Anyway, where shall we head? I'm sure you've got at least a vague idea where we might find some of the books, and we'd better get started since we'll have to catch a taxi or bus or walk to the Gate Station."

"Check out Yangtze colony," Digit told him. "One of the books used to be stored in the museum there, but it was reportedly stolen last year and they couldn't find it. Might not still be there, as they could have taken it through the Gate to just about anywhere, but it's a good place to start."

"Alright," Sky said, giving Shayah a blatant caress as he headed for the door. "We'll be off there now, then. Have fun." The two of them strolled out the door and headed off.

"Are you sure this was a good idea?" Smoke said aside to Digit after they'd left.

"No, not really, but it seemed like a good idea at the time," Digit said, shrugging a bit. "Let's just hope if they run into any Death Dancers, that Sky isn't stupid enough to try to kill them all by himself."

"I don't think being attacked by Death Dancers is going to be his primary concern," Smoke said with a smirk. "Anyway, what's our target?"

"We'll be checking out Saint Martin, I think," Digit said. "I know the book _was_ there at some point, but was found to be missing during an inventory of their artifacts. They might have just misplaced it, in which case we'll be able to locate it, or it might have been stolen."

"We'll see, anyway," Smoke said. "Let me go toss my beer can and we can be off, then. Where'd Parody run off to? Last I saw she was heading for the kitchen. I hope she doesn't eat everything..."

He stood up and headed out that way, to find Parody, sure enough, in the kitchen, albeit not eating anything at the moment. She appeared to be rearranging their cupboards, removing items and putting them back in different places.

"Parody, what are you doing?" Smoke asked, peering over to her as he chucked his empty can into the recycling.

"Alphabetizing your cupboards," Parody replied.

"Okay. Okay. Why?"

"Everything's so disorganized in here. I don't see how you can find anything."

Smoke blinked slowly at her. "Well. Um. I'm afraid you'll have to finish that up later. We were just about to leave for Saint Martin colony to see about finding another book."

"Oh, bother, I'll lose my place," Parody replied.

"Sorry," Smoke said, shaking his head a bit. "Best run or you'll miss the elephant."

Parody reluctantly left her reorganization of the cupboards behind and followed Smoke outside to where Digit was currently appeasing the pink elephant with some treats. The creature was certainly inclined to eat a wide variety of foods, as it appeared, since at the moment she was feeding it chocolate. She glanced over to them and waved at them briefly before hauling herself up top of it, followed shortly by Smoke and Parody once they caught up.

"Next stop, Saint Martin colony," Digit said as they took off. "Hold on to your hats, we're off."

"We aren't wearing any hats," Smoke pointed out.

Over across the colony and toward the Dream Gate they flew, to where the Gate Station was slowly starting to be rebuilt in the wake of its prior destruction. At least by this point the people of Sardinia were starting to get used to the sight of a flying pink elephant regularly swooping overhead. They ducked on through the Gate after giving their destination to the Gate Watcher at the console, and popped through to Saint Martin.

It was night on Saint Martin, or very early morning to be more specific, and the sole Gate Watcher on duty didn't even look twice at them and their mode of transportation as he waved them through.

"Sloppy," Digit muttered as they emerged into the skies of Saint Martin colony.

"Can't expect everyone to be on the ball, even during a crisis," Smoke said. "Though I'd have hoped better of Gate Watchers. Anyway, is that book here?"

Digit traced some runes in the air carefully as they hovered over the colony. "Yeah, it's here. Down, ahead, and to the right. Maybe they just misplaced it."

She steered the elephant down in the direction that the spell had given, circling around and descending upon the location. It did, indeed, appear to be the research station where it had been supposed to be. Digit landed the pink elephant nearby and slid off, heading over to approach the complex.

"So it was 'missing', but it's actually more or less where it was supposed to be after all?" Smoke wondered.

"Think so," Digit said, casually hacking into the complex's computer systems to get the mechanical doors open for them, then strolling in through the hallways, casting the direction spell a couple more times to keep her bearings.

As it turned out, the book had apparently been misfiled and left in entirely the wrong section of the complex from where it was supposed to be, stuck underneath botanical engineering instead of xenoarchaeology. Digit grabbed the book and tucked it into her pack, then headed for the door again.

"That was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be," Smoke commented.

"Freeze!" said a uniformed guard, pointing guns at them.

"Or not."


	12. An Exercise in Wanton Violence

Skywalker and Shayah arrived on the colony on planet Yangtze and proceeded to look around. It was a dismal place, a barely habitable planet covered in swamps in the lowlands and barren, rocky mountains in the highlands. The colony city was based around the Dream Gate which was situated on a rocky ledge overlooking the swamps, but while the air was breathable, the oxygen levels were somewhat less than he was used to.

"Geez, nice place," Skywalker muttered as he headed into the city.

"It's not so bad," Shayah replied with a shrug, meandering along with him.

"Let's see if we can figure out where this thing is," he said, tracing the runes in the air which Digit had sent him. They obediently gave a clear direction off to the west.

"Is it here?" Shayah asked.

"Yeah, it's off that way, apparently. Let's get a car and check it out. Hopefully it's not off buried in the swamp or something."

After renting a hovercar from a place conveniently situated near the Dream Gate for just such a purpose, they climbed inside and flew off to the west. However, a cast of the spell to indicate distance revealed that it was actually located several kilometers outside of town. Sky grumbled to himself about that as he set off that way.

"I wonder how it got all the way out there," Shayah mused.

"I bet there's some criminal base out in the swamp or something," Sky said. "Either that or somebody felt like playing pirates and 'burying treasure'. But I rather hope not. I will prefer that people play pirates on nice, tropical planets instead. It makes a good deal more sense. No, this is probably just swamp bandits or something."

Down in the tangled undergrowth and muddy waterways of Yangtze, the hovercar circled around to find a cluster of ramshackle buildings atop a small hill, itself threatening to sink into the swamp at any given moment. After finding nowhere safe to land except right up next to it, Skywalker sighed as he set them down on relatively solid ground nearby and climbed out, followed by Shayah.

"Wonder if anyone is home..." Sky murmured as they approached the shanty town.

"Look out!" Shayah said, pushing him aside and to the ground as weapons fire narrowly missed them, energy weapons searing the air.

"Fuck," Sky muttered. He pulled out a blaster of his own and brought it to hand. He shouted toward the huts, "Will you give it a rest already? We're not exactly here to arrest you or anything!"

"How do we know that?" a man shouted back.

"Do we _look_ like fucking cops?" Sky said, tentatively climbing to his feet again as it seemed they'd at least stopped shooting at them.

The man hesitantly poked his head out of the door of one of the buildings. "Well, what the fuck do you want, then? You don't have the latest shipment, do you? We weren't expecting that for another week."

"We just want the book," Skywalker told him.

"What book?" said the swamp bandit.

"The Tau Ceti book," Sky said. "I honestly don't give a shit where you got it from, but I know you've got it here." Weapons proceeded to charge up again, and one energy beam clipped Sky across an arm, singing him slightly. "Oh, fuck you," he muttered, changing into crinos form, growing into a large, muscular white-furred wolf-man again, and then started firing back.

He lost track of where Shayah was or what he was doing, more focused at the moment on shooting the bandits and crashing through their ramshackle buildings, smashing in their faces violently in some cases until they'd quit attacking him. Several more shots seared his flesh and burnt his fur, but nothing too serious. Finally, after a tense fight, he looked around as he realized nobody was shooting at him anymore.

"You really need to work on the whole 'subtlety' thing," Shayah commented dryly.

Sky glanced over to the side where Shayah was standing over a wounded man. Her glasses had vanished at some point in the fight, perhaps knocked off in the tussle, and she had pulled out a long, silver knife from somewhere, which was currently covered in blood. Skywalker shifted back into human form and went over toward her.

"Please don't kill me," groaned the man, desparately trying to staunch his wounds with his hands. "I'll tell you whatever you want."

"Where's the book?" Sky said, looking down at him.

"You'll take from us the holy relic, but you've already killed most of us anyway," the man said. "It's in the temple, the biggest building here. Ungh. Why did you have to kill us all? We meant no harm. We just wanted to protect the holy book."

"You were kind of shooting at us, you know," Sky pointed out dryly. "I don't really have much sympathy for swamp bandits who are trying to kill me."

"We're not bandits!" the man insisted. "We never stole anything! Oh, my wife will be so terribly disappointed when she gets back here with the supplies she was getting. All the food and medical supplies we won't need anymore because you've killed us all." He proceeded to pass out from blood loss.

"Congratulations, you've killed a bunch of homeless people," Shayah said dryly as she turned to head toward the large building in the center of the small town, wiping off her dagger and putting it away as she went.

"Well, they shouldn't have shot at me, then," Sky replied, shaking his head as he went off along with her. "What did they really expect us to do, anyway? Bloody people."

The 'temple' was a moderately large building constructed from scrap lumber, and seemed the least likely of the bulidings to sink into the swamp as it was built on the most solid ground. It was dark and filthy inside, but there were several makeshift seats and what might have been some sort of altar at the far end, with a familiar-looking rune-covered book sitting on top of it between some melted candles.

Skywalker snorted softly at the sight, grabbed the book, and shoved it into his bag. "Oh, look at me, I'm violating their fucking holy relic. Come on, let's get out of here. This place smells like it doubled as an outhouse."

Shayah wasn't about to argue with that as she followed him back out to where they'd parked the hovercar. "You know, they probably aren't all dead," she pointed out. "You're just going to leave the rest of them here to bleed to death?"

"What do I look like, a doctor?" Sky said as he opened the hovercar door and tossed the book bag inside. "I'm pissed off at them and it serves them right. Why should I help them after they tried to fucking kill me?"

He could swear that he saw Shayah's lips quirk into a grin for a brief moment before she pulled out her glasses from somewhere and put them back on. "Just wondering," she said lightly.

They hopped inside the hovercar again and took off, leaving behind the broken, bloody, and burnt bodies of the swamp cultists amidst the shattered ruins of their humble dwellings. He slowly calmed down again as they left the scene behind, feeling a little bit guilty about the incident in hindsight, as he hadn't really intended on killing anyone.

"Are you alright?" Shayah asked, looking at the burn marks on his skin from their weapons. "You've been shot several times from the looks of it."

"Yeah, nothing that won't regenerate quickly enough," Sky replied. "They weren't exactly using the most high-powered weaponry in existence. You know, you look better without your glasses on."

"Do I?" she said, blushing modestly. "Well, I didn't want them to get broken in the fight or anything. I only really need to wear them for reading, but it's a force of habit, you know?"

"Yeah, and you're a fair better fighter than I might've given you credit for, from the looks of things," Skywalker pointed out, smirking faintly. "Just where did you pull that dagger out from, anyway?"

"Oh, I don't like going around unarmed. It makes me nervous. But I'd generally prefer a _bit_ more subtlety than you decided to engage in there. What were you thinking, just telling them exactly what we wanted and charging in and attacking them like that?"

"Well, maybe they might have been actually reasonable and handed it over, or at least tried to negotiate for selling it or something," Sky said. "I didn't think they were just going to start shooting for no good reason."

"People can be so unpredictable at times," Shayah said, smirking a little and leaning back in her seat. "Particularly when you have incomplete information, and don't know their motivations or what they really want."

Sky gave a nod of agreement. "No kidding. If you've got any better ideas on how to manage things in the future, I'm all ears."

"I'll be sure to tell you if I think of anything," Shayah said lightly.

Arriving back at town again, Skywalker dropped the hovercar back off at the rental facility and turned back for the Gate Station. The Garou at the Gate glanced at him with a touch of concern upon seeing his obvious wounds.

"Do you require healing?" one of them asked. "What happened?"

Sky shook his head. "It's nothing, really. Just an unfortunate little accident. We'll be heading back to Sardinia."

"As you say. Step on through whenever you're ready."

The two of them headed back through the Dream Gate, leaving behind the wretched swamp planet. Skywalker didn't particularly feel sorry to be away from the miserable place.


	13. Another Exercise in Wanton Violence

"Is this really necessary?" Smoke asked.

The three of them had been hauled off to a nearby security post, after Digit's insistence that they not try to fight the nice men who were just doing their job. She probably did not anticipate that they'd be strip searched and everything they were carrying taken away and set aside. They had not even bothered giving them clothes back afterward, and while none of the three were particularly modest, it left them rather uncomfortable.

"This is totally not my fault, I swear," Digit muttered.

"Why do we have to put up with this, anyway?" Smoke said. "I'm sure we could fight our way out of here if we had to. Who knows what they're doing with our stuff now?"

"You know, I really don't think that a display of wanton violence would exactly help our case here," Digit pointed out dryly. "Just wait till they contact the Gate Watchers. They'll get this all sorted out in no time."

"If you say so," Smoke said. "I really don't like sitting around in a fucking jail cell. While naked, no less."

Parody said lightly, "Oh, I don't think it's so bad. I mean, I have a pretty nice view here, after all."

Smoke rolled his eyes and did not bother to dignify her comment with an answer. "This is ridiculous."

"Oh, relax already," Digit said. "I'm sure they're just... okay, I have no idea what they're doing."

"Well, fuck this," Smoke said. "I'm sick of being stuck in here." He proceeded to change into his large battle form and charge forward toward their cell door.

"No, Smoke, wait!" Digit said, springing to her feet to try to stop him, but he'd already gone crashing through the door and into the hallway on the other side. "Damn it."

"Let's just find our stuff and get the fuck out of here already," Smoke snarled, heading off down the corridor.

Muttering and protesting all the way, Digit went after him, followed shortly by Parody. After breaking down a few more doors, Smoke came upon their belongings in a locked storage room off to one side. After checking a moment to make sure everything appeared to be present, even the books, they went over to collect their things and get dressed again.

"That's odd," Digit said. "We haven't seen anyone else on the way here. I'd have expected at least somebody to have been guarding our stuff or looking it over for some way to incriminate us or something."

"So much the better," Smoke said, having returned to human form to get dressed again. "Let's just get the fuck out of here before they come back, then. I hope Pinky isn't getting anxious waiting for us to come back."

The front office, however, was not entirely unoccupied when they stepped into it. There was a uniformed man in there munching on a jelly donut and drinking coffee, who almost choked when he saw the three Garou just stroll in. He dropped his half-eaten donut onto the table and scrambled to his feet.

"Hey, what are you doing? You can't just walk out of here!"

"You," Smoke said deliberately, striding up to the man, "have no right to strip us, take our belongings, and lock us up indefinitely. Get the Gate Watchers to clear us, I don't care. But we're not staying here. We have work to do."

He turned to head for the door, leaving the man gaping and stuttering for a moment. That didn't last long enough to let them get out of the building, however, as the guard managed to collect himself again and call for backup. Then he pulled out his blaster and pointed it at them threateningly.

"Return to your cell at once or I'll--"

Smoke was in no mood for playing around at the moment, however, and shifted into crinos form again, not even bothering with his gun but charging over to swat the blaster out of the guard's hand and slam him against the far wall. From the sounds of things, he had been entirely too forceful, however, and something might have been broken. The guard lost consciousness immediately.

Digit barked, "Second-Hand Smoke! Stop it this minute! Oh, Gaia, I think you hurt him..." She rushed over toward the fallen guard to trace a healing rune over him.

"Sorry, but I'm getting a bit tired of people pointing guns at me," Smoke said dryly, leaving her to her work and turning to head for the door.

Parody headed along after him as the two of them stepped out onto the streets again. The security backup detail hadn't yet arrived, but certainly looked to be rushing their way over toward them, footsteps clattering against the pavement at a run and weapons already in hand.

"We should run," Parody said quietly. "Or at least get out of the way."

"Why is it always running?" Smoke growled, charging forward to engage the five security officers in a bloody melee.

Parody blinked for a moment at the wanton violence being displayed, then shrugged and shifted into crinos form herself to join in. Her fur was more of a shaggy brown color than Smoke's mottled gray, and she fought with considerably more grace and finesse than Smoke's brute force, but the end result was the same: five uniformed guards laying bleeding on the ground.

"I can't take you anywhere, can I," Digit said, shaking her head as she came out of the security building and approaching to assess the damage as Smoke and Parody shrank down again into human form. She didn't even bother checking to see if Smoke or Parody were hurt, instead turning her attention to healing the poor guards.

"We really probably ought to get going before anyone _else_ tries to attack us," Parody said.

"Bah. Let me at least stabilize their wounds first," Digit said. "I'm not going to be held responsible for the deaths of innocent people."

Smoke shook his head a bit and just started to head off back to where they'd parked the elephant. "I should make sure Pinky's still there and alright." Parody trotted along with him.

Irritated at being left behind, Digit rushed the healing job and scrambled along after them, leaving the still-unconscious guards sprawled out on the pavement. Thankfully, the flying pink elephant was still exactly where they had left it, albeit looking a bit bored at the moment, judging by the property damage it was causing to nearby lamp posts and a parked car. Without further ado, they climbed atop it and flew off toward the Dream Gate again, before anything else could go wrong.

* * *

The others weren't bad yet when Skywalker and Shayah arrived back at home, so Sky decided to order a couple pizzas for when they returned.

"So how did you get the name Skywalker, anyway?" Shayah asked, lounging out on the couch and pulling off her glasses to look over at him.

"Well," Sky began. "Around eighteen or nineteen years ago or so, a pack of Death Dancers appeared on Sardinia. One of them apparently raped my mother before they were driven off again, and then of course, nine months later, I came along."

Shayah raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you afraid the Dancers on the Edge of Death will come back looking for one of their own cubs?"

Sky shrugged a bit. "They already did, once," he replied. "It was around five years ago or so. Fellow came and gave me this whole 'Luke, I am your father.' routine and tried to turn me to the Dark Side and all. I said to him, 'No. Fuck you.' and then ripped his face off. And, well, yeah, I've been called Skywalker ever since."

Shayah snickered softly at the mental image as Skywalker got up to head over to the door to collect the pizza delivery. He went and shoved one in a thermal box in the kitchen to keep it warm, bringing out the other for him and Shayah to eat. It smelled delicious, smothered in mushrooms, sausage, and olives. She reached over to grab a slice to munch almost daintily on it.

"So they haven't been back since then?" Shayah asked. "Do you suppose they even know you're here? Well, running around trying to 'save the galaxy' isn't exactly going to keep you under the radar for long. So what're you going to do then?"

Sky shrugged a bit. "I don't know. Hadn't really thought about it much. Probably do what I usually do and tell them to fuck off and rip their faces off again. I'd much rather be Gate Watching than get dragged off into Death Dancing. Although, that reminds me, you never did tell me just which tribe you belonged to, either."

"Oh, I don't really have one, I'm afraid," Shayah replied, shaking her head and waving a hand dismissively.

"Ronin, huh? That's a pity," Sky said. "Must get awfully lonely, too. Did you ever consider becoming a Gate Watcher? They're all over the place."

"It's not really my thing, you know," she said. "But it doesn't really matter, anyway.

"Whatever," he said, shrugging. "Just a thought."

"What's that book we just got about, anyway?" Shayah asked, changing the subject.

"Hmm, let's see," Sky said, pulling it out to take a closer look at it. "Looks like something to do with the powers of the mind or something. Telepathy, I suppose. Interesting."

"Definitely sounds interesting. Let's see what we can learn from it."

They opened up the book, careful not to get stains from their pizza on it even if it _was_ supposed to be nearly indestructible, and pored over the runic writing throughout it. There were described a number of interesting techniques involving telepathic communication, reading another person's mind and emotional state, probing or altering their memories, even more complex spells describing how to control or influence someone's mind. Shayah proved so interested and curious about the techniques that it almost disturbed Skywalker.


	14. What Toppings Do You Want on Your Magical Pizza?

Sky looked up from his perusal of the El'dari book when the other three came back in through the door a few hours later. He set it aside and let Shayah read it on her own for a bit and stood up.

"Well, what took you guys so long?" Sky asked. "Run into trouble?"

"You could say that," Smoke said dryly.

Digit snorted softly. "Yeah, and Smoke didn't exactly make matters any better, the way he just broke us out of jail and mauled several guards."

"Did you kill anyone?" Shayah asked without looking up.

"No, thankfully," Digit replied. "No thanks to these two. I healed them up before we left. We still might wind up in big trouble about it, though. What a mess. We did get the book, though."

One might almost think Shayah looked a bit disappointed. "Do you think they will come look for you here?" she asked.

"Don't know," Digit said, shaking her head. "I hope not. I'd hate to have to take the goblin up on his hospitality more than necessary. He gives me the creeps."

"What goblin?" Shayah wondered, raising an eyebrow and looking up at her.

"Oh, there was some goblin who offered us his assistance," Digit said. "In getting through the Dream World to places we weren't supposed to be able to go, and giving us a safe place to go briefly when necessary. Apparently he didn't like the deal the other Unseelie had made with the Death Dancers or something, I don't really know. But either way, he still creeps me out."

"Interesting," Shayah mused thoughtfully.

"Yeah, really," Digit said. "I'm sure he's only doing it for his own reasons, but under the circumstances I'll take whatever help we can get. It's going to get really testy if even the Gate Watchers wind up annoyed at us for doing something stupid."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be able to find other allies if that happened, no?" Shayah said.

"I don't know," Digit said, shaking her head. "The Gate Watchers control the entire Dream Gate network for the most part, even if things have been somewhat disrupted lately with the Death Dancer attacks. It would be really inconvenient to have to find other ways to get places. But maybe one of these books would offer some insight into methods that might be useful for such a thing."

"Probably," Sky said. "There's all kinds of interesting things available, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a book on teleportation and travel or something. Unfortunately, we have yet to find one. What's that last book you brought back do?"

Digit pulled out the book they'd gone to such trouble to get and looked it over. "I can only guess..." she mused with a smirk, "...that it seems to be a magical cookbook."

"A cookbook? What?" Sky repeated. "Are you serious?"

"So far as I can tell," Digit said.

"Do you mean that it tells you how to create magical food, or that it tells you how to create food magically?" Sky wondered.

"Um..." Digit said, flipping through the book curiously. "Kind of both, I think. All sorts of miscellaneous things related to food. There's even mention of ways to enchant existing food to have special properties too. Unfortunately beyond the basic principles involved and a couple examples, it's leaving further exploration into that topic to other books. There's even a few favorite El'dari recipes in here that don't appear to be magical at all so far as I can tell."

"Oh, I ordered another pizza for you guys, by the way," Sky said. "It's in the hot box in the kitchen."

"Well, then, experimentation time!" Digit said brightly, heading out that way.

"Why can't we just eat it?" Smoke moaned as he followed after her.

Digit opened up the thermal regulation device and pulled out the still-warm pizza, setting it on the table and opening up the box. It was a large pizza with pepperoni and pineapple. Parody filed into the kitchen, licking her lips at the prospect of food, as they hadn't eaten since before going on their last tangled trip.

"Hmm, let's see what we can do here..." Digit said, pulling out the book and scanning over a page again before setting it aside and beginning to wave her hands in front of the pizza, tracing runes in the air. Her rune gestures were starting to get more complex and faster, as she had realized that she could use more than just her forefinger to lay out the runes. Or perhaps she was starting to come upon the fact that it wasn't even strictly necessary to trace the runes in the air at all, but merely as a focal point for the mind, as she had explained earlier. After several runes had gone through, Digit traced the power rune, and the pizza began to emit a faint blue glow.

Smoke peered uneasily at the pizza. "I'm not too sure that I want to eat something that's glowing blue."

"Don't worry," Digit assured him. "It's perfectly safe. I think. I mean, I didn't include any runes for 'poison' or 'disease' or anything, after all. I was simply attempting one of the example enchantments given in the book, to infuse food with energy so that it refreshes and revitalizes those that eat of it."

"Yeah, well... you eat it first," Smoke said, smirking and taking a seat at the table and making no move to touch the glowing pizza. "If you don't keel over, I'll know it's okay."

Digit smirked broadly and took a seat nearby, and grabbed one of the faintly glowing slices of pizza. "Mmm, it does smell even more delicious than usual, though!" She took a bite of it, chewed on it, and shivered lightly. "Oh, now that's very interesting. It's like eating coffee pizza!"

"Coffee pizza?" Smoke wondered, raising an eyebrow as he tentatively reached out to grab one of the pieces himself, and Parody came by and took another.

"Try it, you'll see what I mean!" Digit said brightly, munching on some more of it and mmming softly.

"If you say so," Smoke said dubiously, taking a bite of his own slice. "Oh, wow, yeah, you're right."

"I think I'll pass on trying it out, myself," Sky said with a smirk. "Somebody needs to be a designated driver here in case something goes wrong, after all."

"I'm sure it's okay," Digit said. "I copied the formula exactly, after all. But it's so delicious! And I feel so wide awake!"

"Yeah, but how long is that going to last?" Sky said. "Is it going to make you come crashing down in an hour and pass out then feel depressed for days afterward?"

"Oh, come on, it's not like that," Digit insisted, hungrily devouring her pizza. "I'm sure it'll be alright."

"Yeah, whatever," Sky said. "I'll be in the living room with Shayah if you pizza junkies need me." He smirked and strolled off in that direction again, wanting to get some more reading done on the very fascinating telepathy book.

Unsurprisingly, even though Shayah and Sky retired to bed at a normal hour (or at least normal for them, which was sometime around three in the morning), Smoke, Digit, and Parody found it quite impossible to even consider sleeping that night. Instead, they continued to stay up, reading through the various El'dari books that they had thus far collected. The books encompassed a wide range of subjects, from the useful to the not so much so.

Sky and Shayah emerged from the bedroom around noon, looking considerably more well-rested than the others. "You guys are still awake?" Sky said incredulously, looking at them. "What in the world did you do to that pizza?"

"Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time," Digit replied. "We're fine, don't worry. Although it's not a particular experiment that I'd like to do on a regular basis. Deficiencies in REM sleep could be known to precipitate an increased potential for mental instability..."

"Right..." Sky drawled, smirking. "You sure you'll be alright and not going to pass out on the elephant or something? If we're going out, we should probably stick together just in case of you guys getting hit with unexpected side effects."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," Digit reluctantly agreed. "I've plotted out the next logical course of inquiry where we might be able to obtain further of the missing El'dari books. Go grab some breakfast or coffee or something first and we'll get ready for leaving. I have a nice list of several worlds that look to be likely candidates."

"Breakfast sounds good," Sky said, going into the kitchen to toast up a bagel or two and make some coffee.

Smoke muttered, "I suppose it would be a bad idea to eat more of that magic pizza just yet? Well, we did eat the entire thing last night, but I'm sure you could enchant up another one..."

"No more magic pizza just now, Smokey," Digit said with a smirk. "I'd rather not turn us into drug addicts here. Even if it's not exactly a drug... Whatever."

"Maybe whatever it was would generally work better on El'dari physiology than our own," Smoke mused. "I mean, we don't even know what they might have looked like..."

"Perhaps," Digit said with a shrug.

"You seemed to really enjoy that pizza," Shayah said with a smirk. "Why refuse it now? You don't really seem to be so terribly inconvenienced or anything."

"I'm probably just being paranoid, really," Digit said. "But better safe than sorry. I still don't know what the more long-term effects of the use of such spells might be. They might be completely harmless in the long run for all I know. But we really don't have the time to be experimenting on ourselves and testing it."

"Being able to stay awake without massive consequences later on may prove very useful should the situation become more dire," Shayah pointed out. "It should not be entirely ruled out as a useful possibility."

"You have a point. But right now, it's not really necessary," Digit said. "Even if I _would_ be able to get so much more work done if I didn't have to sleep..."


	15. A Little More Trouble Never Hurt

Digit didn't sleep for a week.

Taking Shayah's gentle prodding, advice, and suggestions to heart, she kept herself awake at night when the others were fast asleep in their rooms, weaving rune spells to dispel any trace of weariness from herself. In the extra time, she sat in her room alone studying the El'dari books they had found and practicing minor spells, gleaning what she could from it and improving her skills with it.

They only found three more books over the next several days, coming across planets where the books which might have once been there were missing entirely and didn't show up on their magical radar. But the ones that were there, they found and tracked down, and added to their collection. They didn't bother trying to split up again after the snags they had gotten into the last time. At least they managed to avoid getting arrested again, failing all else.

"Digit," Sky said firmly. "Digit? Digit! Snap out of it. You're daydreaming or something. Maybe I should steer the elephant."

"What? Oh, sorry," Digit said, blinking for a moment. They were off on planet Zeta Reticuli II, where their spells had detected one of the missing books located far away from the small base around the Dream Gate. It was going to prove a long trip over, and they'd come equipped with extra supplies.

"Not that there's much to see anyway," Sky muttered. "All this planet needs is some moisture farmers and some whiny farmboys and maybe a few Jawas and Sand People. It's definitely got enough sand."

"Oh, it's not that bad," Smoke said. "There's oceans and forests too."

"Yeah, yeah," Skywalker muttered. "Up where there's supposed to be poles, anyway. The Dream Gate got a nice spot, but of course, the book is way off in the middle of the desert. What in the world is it doing there? I hope there's no idiotic cults out here too."

As they approached the location of the book, they came across a huge transparent steel dome in the middle of the desert, with two smaller domes adjoining it. There appeared to be a good deal of activity in the vicinity, with small flying vehicles parked nearby. A small forest could be seen through the shining main dome.

"Okay, this is odd," Digit commented as they circled the dome, casting the locater spells a couple more times to confirm that the book was, indeed, inside the dome complex. "There's no mention of this being here on the 'net, but it definitely has the earmarks of a Gate Watcher project."

"Oh, great, a top secret base or something?" Sky said, letting out a low whistle. "They won't be happy about us poking around in here if so."

"Best go pitch the whole 'saving the world' spiel at them and see what they say," Smoke suggested. "Maybe they'll even avoid shooting us on sight for being in the wrong place."

They came nearby and landed the pink elephant near what appeared to be the entrance to the facility, and approached cautiously. Thankfully there were no guards outside, for the probably obvious reasons that it was really hot outside and that they weren't expecting anybody to just show up in the middle of the desert anyway. However, that didn't mean they weren't being watched, even as they stepped into the airlock they could practically feel the cameras trained upon them.

"You do not have authorization to be here," said a voice from a nearby speaker. "Why are you here?"

"We're looking for the Tau Ceti book," Digit replied. "We need to find the Tau Ceti books in order to combat the Death Dancers and keep them out of their hands."

The voice was silent for a long moment as if considering that. "You do not have authorization for that request," he replied. "You also do not need to worry about the Death Dancers coming here. I am not certain where you got your information, as it was classified. But the Death Dancers will not know of it. This facility is safe from attack."

"But--" Digit began in protest.

"No buts," the voice said. "You may not enter this facility. You will return to base immediately." The voice went silent again.

Digit muttered for a moment, then concentrated for a long moment, and the doors in front of them leading into the facility slid open. "Come on," she said to the others, strolling inside.

"What did you do?" Sky wondered, raising an eyebrow as he followed after her along with the others.

"Some hacking and a little rune magic," Digit replied. "They're gonna be pissed at us. They might attack us or something. But I've got control of the facility for the moment."

"You're a genius, Digit," Sky said.

"Don't thank me, let's just find that book before they manage to wrest control back."

Another couple castings of the locater spells pointed the location of the book to the small dome on the left. They trekked through the artificial forest underneath the big dome, surrounded by insects, birds, and the sounds of small mammals. It appeared that they had created something of a stable ecosystem in here. However, when they got to the corridor connecting that dome to the next one, three very displeased Gate Watchers in wolf-man form were waiting for them.

"Halt!" one of them demanded, pointing a rather large energy rifle at them.

"Sorry," Digit said, starting to trace combat runes even as her companions shifted into crinos form to engage the Gate Watchers in melee.

Their clash was both brief and bloody, as the Gate Watchers were both outnumbered and outmatched in spite of their superior weaponry. Skywalker and Smoke were both fierce fighters, and Parody and Shayah could be positively viciously dirty when they put their minds to it. When it was over, Digit looked to their wounded bodies regretfully and approached to begin to heal them.

"We don't have time for this," Shayah interrupted her. "More of them could arrive any minute. Let's get the book and get out of here."

"I don't want to kill--"

"They aren't badly hurt. They'll regenerate. Come on," Shayah insisted, heading along down the corridor, followed closely by Smoke, Sky, and Parody.

"I suppose you're right," Digit said, reluctantly leaving the unconscious werewolves behind and following after them, unable to argue her logic.

The smaller dome off to the side to which they were entering appeared to be more used for research and scientific activities than natural development. There were rooms and buildings inside of it as well as large equipment, computers, and machinery.

"I wonder how they got all this out here," Sky mused as Digit led them along, casting location spells as necessary to keep them on track. "It's way out here and they aren't supposed to bring large tech objects through the Dream Gates... Maybe they found another way."

"Let's worry about that later," Digit said. "This way. And let's hope we don't run into anyone else." She led them off toward one of the buildings toward the side of the dome.

They weren't in any luck to avoiding encountering anymore irate Gate Watchers on the way, having to fight their way past half a dozen more of them before they finally reached the building in question. By this point, Digit was feeling terrible about the entire business and thinking they were going to wind up in serious trouble over it. She wondered, would they even be able to get back through the Dream Gate? She pushed aside that consideration for later, though.

The small storage building appeared to house a number of old El'dari artifacts, and there was a young woman inside taking notes on one of them when they came in. She was quite startled to see five armed and dangerous looking Garou barge in, and stopped her datapad in surprise and stepped back away.

"Don't hurt me," she said, terrified. "What do you want?"

"Just this," Skywalker said, reaching over to grab the El'dari book from one of the tables and shove it in his bag. "That's all."

"Please don't hurt me," the woman pleaded.

"Don't worry. We're leaving now," Digit assured her as they turned to head for the door.

Some of the Garou they had injured on the way in were starting to stir again, groaning in pain as their wounds slowly regenerated. One of the ones at the corridor even reached out and grabbed onto Shayah's leg as she tried to step past, earning himself a swift stab with a silver dagger. However, they managed to make it outside to where they'd parked the elephant again without fighting anyone else.

"Do you think they'll have gotten word to the Gate Station about this?" Sky wondered as they climbed back aboard the pink elephant and set off flying north again.

"We should have stopped to heal some of them," Digit muttered.

"I'd be surprised if they _didn't_ hear about this," Smoke said dejectedly. "We're not going to have to fight our way off the planet too, are we? This sucks."

The Gate Watchers at the base had definitely heard about the attack, whether they were supposed to know the desert outpost existed or not. They would not even allow them to land nearby, forcing them to veer off and take refuge in a clearing in the forest five kilometers from the base. They slid off the elephant and made a makeshift camp for the moment to rest and get their bearings.

"Okay, _now_ what are we going to do?" Smoke said.

"Let's take a look at what that book we got was first," Sky suggested, pulling it out. "Maybe it'll offer something to help us get through this crap."

As it turned out, the book was, indeed, a manual on methods of teleportation, portals, and the like. After some analysis of the spells involved, they were able to open a temporary passage straight through to the Dream World, and headed through.


	16. The Tea Is a Lie, Too

"Well, we're off that planet at least," Sky said. "Let's see about calling up our goblin 'friend', shall we? Fizzik, Fizzik, Fizzik?"

The little green fellow appeared promptly, stepping out of the misty forest which they had found themselves surrounded by and peering at the five shapeshifters intently, as if counting them, although he pretty much took the presence of the flying pink elephant in stride and without further comment on it.

"Oh, you've brought along friends?" Fizzik said, peering at Parody and Shayah. "Are you sure you can trust them?"

"No," Skywalker replied. "But then we're not sure we can trust you, either, so it evens out a bit, hmm?"

"Whatever you say," Fizzik said lightly, smirking a bit. "Come along then, right this way and we'll talk."

The goblin turned and struck off into the forest, leaving them to follow along as he led the way back to his tiny, bright red house again. After herding them all into the disorienting little space, he closed the door behind them and rubbed his hands together thoughtfully, looking them over. They could not be certain just how he had managed to fit even the pink elephant inside the little house, but it appeared to have shrunk down to a little miniature version even tinier than they were.

"Alright," Fizzik said, going over to put on a pot of tea to boil. "So, give me an update here. What's up?"

"I think the Gate Watchers are pissed off at us," Sky said. "We had to break into a secret GW facility to get this last book here, and fight past several of them on the way. If word spreads about this incident, and I have no doubt that it will, we won't be able to use the Dream Gate network very easily, if at all."

"Sounds like you've gotten yourselves into a real pickle," the goblin said. "But don't you worry. Ol' Fizzik here can help you out, yes I can."

"That's great," Sky said. "We definitely are going to need all the help we can get. There's still several books floating around out there we haven't gotten our paws on yet, but we've made great progress on getting them, and I'm sure we've stumped even the Death Dancers in it as we managed to get the Divination book to help us find them a lot more easily, and they haven't got that."

"Most excellent," Fizzik said, nodding. "You've done great work, kids, and I really appreciate it."

Digit smirked and added, "Yeah, only difficulty now is in avoiding the attention of both the Gate Watchers and the Death Dancers in order to get the rest of the books. And let's not even think about afterward and how we're going to manage to get back into the Gate Watchers' good graces again after this..."

"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," Sky said. "Because I have a feeling that we're going to need to piss them off more to get the rest anyway, if the last one is any indication."

"Somehow I don't think they're overly convinced of any importance of _us_ having to obtain the things," Digit replied with a smirk. "I'm not overly convinced of that at the moment, either, since there's no way in hell the Death Dancers are going to be able to find some of these things anytime soon."

"But they _are_ extremely useful nonetheless," Shayah commented.

Smoke added, "And more power would be very important to any hope of ending the Death Dancer threat?"

"It's a point," Digit said with a grin. "There is much that we have yet to learn, and yet much more in the books we already have that will take years of study to fully absorb. But we're getting better with it."

"Well, you can't stay here forever, of course, but where are you planning on going next?" Fizzik asked.

"After the near disaster on Zeta Reticuli, I was thinking someplace quiet to rest and get a chance to read over the latest book we found," Digit told him. "There's a chance there might be a book on Epsilon Eridani, as well. Can you get us there?"

"Certainly," Fizzik replied. He poured himself a cup of tea and asked, "Tea, anyone?"

"No, thank you," Digit said firmly.

"Suit yourself," Fizzik said with a shrug, sipping his tea. "Now, yes, I can certainly get you to Epsilon Eridani. Slightly more complicated if you don't want to go straight through the Dream Gate there, but still doable. Hope you don't mind a slight detour, huh?"

"Just so long as you can get us there bypassing the Gate Watchers," Digit said. "We can get back into the Dream World on our own, without the help of the Gate."

"You know," Shayah pointed out. "You didn't really need rune magic for just that."

"Yes, well, it's faster," Digit said.

"I'll presume you want to get put down a ways away from the Dream Gate, too," Fizzik said. "Alright, whenever you're ready, we'll go, and I'll lead you the way there."

The goblin tossed aside his half-empty cup of tea carelessly, only adding to the clutter and mess in the tiny house, and headed to the door, pushing past them and heading outside again. The Garou were glad to get back to their usual sizes again and not to be in the crowded little building any longer. He led them off on a long, winding trip through what seemed like every type of terrain in existence: forests, deserts, mountains, hills, swamps, plains, jungles, islands. They could not be certain just how long they were travelling through the Dream World, but eventually he stopped at what appeared to be an active volcano currently erupting.

"Here you go," he said, tracing a circle in the air which grew into a portal large enough to fit the elephant through. "It's temporary, so hurry on through. Be sure to drop me a line if you need my help again! Have fun, kids." He turned and vanished again.

"Well, here goes nothing," Digit said, leading the way through the portal, followed closely by the others.

The portal vanished moments after they had gotten through to the other side. Being so far from the outpost on the planet, they couldn't be entirely certain that they were really on the planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, but at least there was nobody immediately around trying to kill them, which was a definite plus. There were also, thankfully, no erupting volcanos in the vicinity either. They found themselves instead on top of what seemed to be an extinct volcano on a moderately large tropical island.

"Well, if we have to get stuck here for a while, at least this is a good spot for a vacation," Sky pointed out. "Sadly no chicks in bikinis or dancing hula girls, though. Unless..." He looked toward Parody, Shayah, and Digit, grinning.

"Don't even think about it," Digit said with a smirk, turning to head down the slope to get onto some more level ground and casting the locater spells along the way. "There's a book on this planet, but it's not on this island. Around a hundred miles to the east or so. I can't tell if that's on another island, or at the bottom of the sea. My scrying attempt just comes up all dark. It's probably buried or locked in a chest or something."

"Some pirates playing with buried treasure?" Sky proposed.

"Possibly," Digit said. "The 'net indicates there's human habitation here not associated with the Gate Watchers, scattered throughout the islands. I suppose it was a nice place to colonize so they came out this way."

"Can't say I blame them," Smoke commented. "Let's go set up a camp somewhere and get some rest. I don't care if it's not even local night yet. All that running around we've been doing since we last slept is getting to me."

"Hmm, I wonder," Digit said thoughtfully. They'd reached a clearing at the base of the mountain, surrounded by lush and verdant tropical foliage, but the elephant was having difficulty getting through it. Digit turned toward it and traced some runes in the air in front of it. After a complex series of runes, the pink elephant shrunk down rapidly until it was around the size of a fat pig. Confused for a moment, it popped out its little wings and flew around in circles, letting out a high-pitched trumpeting sound.

"That is _so_ cute," Parody said, giggling.

"Um," Smoke said, blinking. "I do hope you'll be able to make it normal sized again, too. I hate to have to build a boat and sail all the way to where the book is."

"Don't worry," Digit said. "The spell can go either way. It was in the spacial distortion book, but I forgot about it until I saw what happened to Pinky inside Fizzik's house."

"Well, I suppose that does make it a bit easier to get him into places," Sky said. "Or is it a she? I never did bother to check. Or really care, for that matter."

"Let's just not ask," Digit said, smirking.

They pulled out the supplies they had brought with them to Zeta Reticuli and proceeded to set up a makeshift camp, and got a campfire going with a quick rune. Digit offered to take watch while the others slept, quietly casting her stimulant spell when she thought nobody else was looking. She proceeded to pull out the travel book to read over during the night, by the light of a small glowing orb summoned with another rune after the sun had set, hovering just above her head.

Several hours into the night, Shayah woke up and leaned over to look at her, and said quietly, "Not sleeping, Digit?"

"No," Digit replied.

"You haven't actually slept since you discovered that spell, have you?" Shayah asked.

"No, I haven't," Digit admitted softly. "I'm fine, really."

"Far be it from me to protest," Shayah said with a crooked grin. "Let's see what you've learned, hmm?" She went over to sit next to Digit and look over the book she was reading.


	17. Every Story Needs Pirates, Damn It

Smoke and Skywalker stirred awake the next morning to find Digit and Shayah still awake and reading about teleportation techniques, talking quietly and bouncing around ideas for how to best utilize them.

"Ugh, why did we have to wake up at the crack of dawn?" Sky complained.

"It wasn't even sunset before we went to sleep, Sky," Smoke pointed out.

"Whatever," Sky said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "And why's Digit still awake, anyway? I'm not going to have to carry her daydreaming ass all the way across the planet am I?"

Digit looked up at him and smirked. "No, Sky. While that mental image is quite amusing, I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much."

"If you say so," Sky said dubiously. "But I better not catch you falling asleep at the reins again today."

Smoke asked, "What's for breakfast?"

"Don't look at me," Digit said. "We ate all the food we brought with us last night. Although primarily you two." She smirked. "Go fishing or collecting fruit or just conjure up something."

"What's the El'dari rune for 'pizza'?" Smoke asked.

"Tch," Digit said, rolling her eyes. "It's not all about the _runes_ , Smoke. It's about your _mind_. The runes can't do everything. You have to focus images in your mind of what you want or it's not going to work, nor be half as flexible as it could be."

"If you say so," Smoke said. He took in a deep breath and tried to do what she said, concentrating hard on the type of food he wanted to conjure while tracing his fingers in the air in the shape of the runes which had been described in the cookbook. After he finished adding the power rune, sure enough, a large, hot pizza appeared on the ground in front of him, box and all. "Damn it," Smoke muttered as he opened the box to look at it. "I didn't want anchovies."

"Eat it anyway," Sky suggested, reaching over to grab a slice. "I'm hungry enough not to care what it has on it."

"I smell food," Parody murmured, blinking slowly awake. "Oh, anchovies! My favorite!"

Sky had to glare at Digit faintly when she took a slice of her own, turned her back on them, and cast the stimulant spell on it again as if she thought nobody could see and began to eat it. Shaking his head a bit and sighing, he continued to eat his own breakfast.

Once they had finished with breakfast, they headed off toward the nearest beach, where Digit cast some runes to enlarge the elephant back to its normal size again and they climbed aboard. They headed eastward across the ocean in the general direction of where the book had been located the day before. Along the way, they spotted several small island settlements, and a few old-fashioned sailing ships.

"Wow, sailing ships?" Sky said, peering down as they passed nearby one. "I didn't think anyone still actually used those things. What is this, planet SCA?"

The locater spells led them along to a sandy beach on a small island just off the coast of a larger island, and they landed and climbed off. "Um," Digit said thoughtfully as she cast the direction and distance spells again. "Well. Yeah. It's here. Directly below our feet. But it's several feet underground. Did anyone happen to bring a shovel?"

"Buried treasure!" Sky said. "Somehow it seems less exciting when we're actually at the point of having to dig it up. Do you think we'll find gold dubloons, gems and jewelry, and ancient fetishes down there too?"

"We still have to dig it up first," Smoke said. "And I'm sure we can make a hole with magic. Preferably without accidentally smushing whatever's at the bottom or burying it further, too."

They stood around the spot where the book was supposed to be buried and proceeded to target it with telekinetic 'shovel' spells. This primarily resulted in making a big mess, scattering a lot of sand around, and almost burying Smoke in a misdirected pile of sand. As they were engrossed in doing this (poorly), they failed to notice a ship approach and land a boat on the beach with a landing party of men dressed in classical pirate garb.

"Yarrr!" said the pirate captain, brandishing a cutlass. "Step down, ye scurvy dogs! Ye not be going digging for buried treasure on this here island!"

"Um," Smoke said, pausing between digging spells and brushing some sand off himself. "I'm afraid that while we _are_ Garou, we have been getting sufficient vitamin C."

"Huh?" said the captain, blinking for a moment in confusion. "Whatever. Surrender at once, ye filthy bilge rats, or we'll keelhaul ye!"

"Sorry," Digit said offhandedly, starting to cast a rune even as her companions moved to change form and attack the pirates.

Although the pirates outnumbered them by almost two to one, the Garou were much stronger and more vicious than them, especially given that the pirates were not even wearing anything resembling armor and were primarily wielding cutlasses and positively ancient firearms. It did not take them long to realize they were severely outmatched, and the pirates who were still upright scurried off back to the boat.

Skywalker looked down at one of the wounded pirates that was left behind, ripping open a huge gash in his gut with his claws for good measure. "Bloody pirates," he muttered. "Well, extremely bloody now, anyway."

"Was that really necessary?" Digit wondered, looking down at the other two injured pirates and wondering whether to even bother healing them or not.

"Yes, Digit," Sky said as he returned to homid form. "Yes it was."

Shayah turned back to continue digging into the sand, exhausting work even if they weren't moving it themselves. "They're just useless pirates," she said. "Leave them. We've got work to do."

Digit stared at the dying pirates for a moment longer before turning back to the work herself. The hole they were creating was quite the disorganized mess, and it didn't really occur to them that there might be better ways of doing it at the moment. Nearby, the three fallen pirates bled out their lives onto the sand, unheeded.

The sun was high in the sky before they finally uncovered a large, heavily bound chest buried deep within the sand, and dragged it up out of the hole and onto the beach laborously. It was heavy and objects within shifted as they moved it, certainly containing much more than just the book they were searchin for.

"Whoever buried this here went to no small lengths to make sure it didn't get washed away," Smoke panted as he leaned against the big chest.

"Let's get this thing open and see what we've got now, shall we?" Digit said, peering at the lock and twitching out a rune spell to unlock it. With a satisfactory pop, the lock sprang open, and she pulled the lid of the chest open.

As it turned out, the chest did indeed contain gold dubloons (fake), gems and jewelry (glass), fetishes (a spiked dildo and a pair of handcuffs), in addition to the book at the bottom. Skywalker yanked out the book and shoved it into his bag, peering in at the other assorted objects collected inside the chest.

"This isn't even real gold," he said, tapping one of the 'dubloons' with a distinct lack of any metallic sound. "Actually I think it's plastic. What are these idiots doing, playing at being pirates or something?"

"Maybe there's not much real gold on this planet," Digit said. "And the value intrinsic to a material has little correspondance to the value of the actual currency in modern days. Most of our currency these days _is_ plastic, after all."

"Yeah, but still," Sky said. "What a ripoff. Stupid pirates." He went over to kick the corpses a couple times for good measure. "Anyway, what's for lunch? All that work's given me quite the appetite."

"Pirate pizza?" Shayah suggested half-jokingly.

Sky glanced at the dead pirates and said, "No. They'd probably give me indigestion anyway. Let's hop away from here before they decide to come back with reinforcements who might actually be able to put up a fight, and just conjure up something."

Leaving the chest behind with its junk, they set off on the elephant onto the next island and set up camp again there. Digit shrunk down the elephant again to the tiny size it really seemed to enjoy for some reason, buzzing around and trumpeting jovially as they tried to get their camp set up.

"Right," Sky said. "Since Smoke failed at summoning a good pizza last time, I'm going to do it myself this time." One rune spell later, a box landed at his feet with a stereotypical cartoon pirate on it and the words 'Pirate Pizza' in flamboyant letters. Opening it revealed a pizza with pineapple and what looked like sausage. "Much better," Sky said, taking a slice.

"I do hope that isn't made from what it sounds like," Smoke commented, although that didn't stop him from taking some himself.

"Nahhh," Sky said, waving his hand dismissively.

"Well, if it were, it would be the first good use those pirates were put to in their lives," Shayah said lightly as she nibbled on a bit of pizza.

Sky snickered softly. "You're so funny, Shayah. Keep up the jokes like that and somebody might think you were a Death Dancer or something."

"Imagine that," Shayah said with a faint smirk. "Little old me?" She laughed softly.


	18. Some People Fall, Others Go Skydiving

Smoke went aside from the others that night to read a bit before he slept. They had spent a long time digging up that chest and were all fairly exhausted from it. They had not realized just how draining continuous magic use could be. Skywalker and Parody were out like lights they hit the ground.

"Catching up on the reading a bit?" Shayah asked softly as she slid up next to him, definitely not shy about pressing up to his side.

"Just a bit," Smoke murmured. "I'm not exactly planning on giving up sleep like Digit over there."

Shayah chuckled quietly. "So why are _you_ really doing it? You've seemed like you're little more than following along on this crazy quest sometimes."

"Unlike Parody, who just seems a bit unhinged and easily amused?" Smoke replied with a smirk. "Well, I'd hardly be one to leave my packmates, no matter what sort of mess they drag me into. Plus, the phenomenal cosmic power is pretty nice, too."

"So what are you going to do when it's over?" Shayah asked. "I'm sure the Gate Watchers are going to want the books back to secure and study themselves."

Smoke grunted softly. "They haven't exactly been very helpful or cooperative, either, unfortunately. While I've no objection to helping out the tribe, it seems a bit irritating to kindly hand them over after they did everything they could to hinder us. But I suppose it would mollify them, if nothing else."

"It's a point," Shayah said. "Do you really want to go to such work and trouble, just to hand them over for little more than them not being pissed off at you anymore? Maybe they'll just take all your knowledge of it and forbid you from studying anymore of it, too."

"Ugh," Smoke muttered, making a face at the thought. "I'd hope they wouldn't do that. But if that's what it'll take to see my family again, so be it."

"You'd sacrifice all of this, for your family?" Shayah wondered.

"Yes, I would," Smoke replied.

"What if your packmates disagreed?" Shayah said softly. "What if they didn't think it was worth the price?"

"I..." Smoke murmured. "Well, I'm not really sure what I'd do, then. It would really suck having to choose between them, but what can you do?"

"The universe is full of choices, some of them tougher than others," Shayah said. "It's quite a pickle we've gotten ourselves into now, but not one without a way out. Multiple ways out, in fact. With the power of the books behind us, why would we need to bow to their opinions, anyway?"

"I don't know," he said. "Power isn't everything, after all. And these books aren't the only power available in the universe, either. Even if El'dari magic ultimately would outstrip any other sort available in the long run, which I doubt, we're hardly yet more than novices with it, anyway."

"Do you really want them to dictate what you can and can't do for the rest of your life, though?" she asked. "You're still young, and you've come so far already. Imagine what you might achieve if you were given the chance to reach for it."

"I could do quite a lot, I imagine, but what would be the use in any of it if I can't use the Dream Gates or approach civilization without getting shot at?"

Shayah chuckled softly. "Digit didn't tell you she found a nice travel spell that's even better at getting us from one place to another than the Dream Gates?"

"No," Smoke replied. "But either way, I still don't want to be a fugitive for the rest of my life. It would get awfully lonely."

"You don't have to be alone. We're still with you, anyway. And I rather doubt we'd be the only ones who would ever wish to interact with you without shooting at you."

"Perhaps," Smoke said with a shrug. "I should get some sleep." He put away the book and went to join Sky and Parody to rest.

*

The pack became increasingly ragged over the next few weeks as they traveled from world to world to track down the remaining books, rarely risking going near any official settlement associated with the Gate Watchers. They knew well enough from announcements on the cybernet that they were wanted and people were searching for them, but rarely actually came into any danger of being caught due to their paranoia.

"So far as I can tell," Digit said as they trudged through a thick jungle on one world, "this is the last book that's yet unaccounted for. The Death Dancers have the rest of them."

"Thank Gaia," Sky muttered. "It's about bloody time. I was starting to think we'd have to check every inhabited planet in the galaxy to track down the last few."

"We almost did," Digit pointed out. "I think we did manage to skip a few along the way. Alright, here we go. Locater spells indicate that it's inside this cave full of snakes. Look out for the dragon."

Skywalker blinked as he peered into the dark cave, shining a rune light into it. "I don't see any snakes in there."

"Digit, you've been hallucinating for weeks," Smoke commented.

"I'm not hallucinating," Digit insisted. "Just because I can sense things you can't."

"You're hopelessly addicted to that stimulant spell," Sky pointed out. "And it's messing with your mind."

"Nonsense. I'm not addicted. I can stop anytime I want. I just don't want to. Come on, let's get that book already."

"If you say so," Sky said dubiously, heading in along after her with the others.

Their rune lights did not reveal anything that could remotely be considered some distant relative of any sort of reptile within the cave. The place was fairly damp, and there was some fungus about, but no animals of any sort could be detected within it. By anyone other than Digit, that is.

"Look out, Parody," Digit snapped. "That big black snake is about to bite you!"

"Where? Where?" Parody said, looking around in startlement.

"There aren't any snakes in here, Digit," Smoke said impatiently.

"And Sky, there are slimy red worms crawling all over you," Digit added. "I can't imagine that's very comfortable."

"I'll take a bath in the river afterward," Sky said with a smirk. "Where is this book?"

"Well, if you don't mind getting eaten, anyway," Digit said, continuing on down the tunnel. "Smoke, you're being devoured by maggots."

"She's going nuts, isn't she," Sky said aside to Shayah in a stage whisper.

"Going?" Shayah repeated with a smirk. "I'm surprised she's not giving any warnings to me, too."

"Oh, it's much too late for you anyway," Digit replied. "You've already been eaten up and shat out again."

"The book, Digit?" Sky said, finally sighing and casting locater runes himself. "Fine. This way. And no more comments from acid trip girl."

Digit sighed and followed along after him, refraining from further comments on what she saw, or thought she saw anyway. The others wouldn't believe her, anyway, and it wasn't like she meant it exactly literally, but she couldn't really explain it anyway. The images never appeared the same from moment to moment, anyway. Sometimes they were like venomous spiders, or flies, or crows plucking out their eyes. And she did not care to think too much of what she saw of herself in them. The thought was frightening in a way.

Down at the bottom of the cave, Sky froze in his steps as his rune light illuminated a massive, scaled reptilian creature laying unmoving upon a pile of silver, gold, gems, jewelry, and other assorted treasure. The being was every image of the stereotypical fantasy dragon, but it did not make a sound or budge in the slightest, even for apparent breathing.

"What the..." breathed Sky.

"Um," Smoke mutered. "How did it even get down here? It's too big to fit through the tunnel."

Undeterred, Parody snuck quietly down past the giant reptile and plucked out the rune-covered brook from underneath its hind claws. Before she could turn to scurry back to the relative safety of the tunnel, the lizard seemed to shimmer for a moment and slowly stir. Parody turned and ran into the tunnel as fast as she could move, followed closely by the others... except for Digit, who remained standing where she was.

"Digit? Come on!" Sky said urgently, pausing to grab her arm.

Digit shook her head. "That's not the dragon. It's not real. It's a decoy. The real dragon is waiting for us to run screaming out of the cave."

"Um, what?" Sky said, stopping and peering back into the treasure cave. Sure enough, the reptilian creature did not appear to even be attempting to pursue them, merely waving its head, claws, and tail about as it peered around threateningly like a puppet in an amusement park haunted house.

"Calm down and be prepared," Digit said. "Unfortunately, there isn't another exit out of the cave so far as I can tell. But we should be ready to fight. I don't think they'll be happy."

Parody came back over to Skywalker and shoved the book into his bag, and the five of them regrouped and headed back toward the cave entrance again cautiously. However, when they reached the exit to the cave again, they found that it was no giant reptile coming to eat them, but machines.

"Robots?" Smoke said, casting up a defensive rune. "Robot ninjas? Ninja robots?"

"Whatever," Sky said, shifting form and sprouting fur before going to attack their assailants.

A volley of spells, energy weapons, projectiles, fur, and blood streaked the air and ground outside the cavern. Digit managed to grab control of one of them and turn it against the others before it was destroyed itself. But after a heated battle, the sparking remains of the robotic ninjas lay broken upon the rocky ground.

"Dragons indeed," Sky muttered irritably. "Let's go." They found a clearing large enough to launch out of, and enlarged the elephant again and took to the skies.

"I think after we've set up camp for the day," Digit said, "We're going to need to have a nice, long talk. I think we've all become corrupted before we even realized it."


	19. It Took Them This Long to Figure It Out?

"What do you mean, we're corrupted?" Smoke asked after they'd gotten camp set up again in the forest. They were starting to really hate the forest. One forest or another, anyway.

"I can see Wyrm corruption quite clearly on every one of us," Digit replied. "Except possibly Parody, who seems to have managed to avoid the worst of it thus far."

"You're hallucinating, Digit," Sky said.

"They are not just hallucinations!" Digit snapped. "They're visual representations of a spiritual taint that has been growing stronger by the day." She looked sharply over toward Shayah, who was being quiet for the moment. "And you. It's the strongest on Shayah. Strong enough that I'd about think she were a Death Dancer herself."

"Now that's just paranoia," Sky replied with a snort.

Digit sighed and put her head in her hands. "Guys, listen to me. Even if we wanted to right now, we can't go back in this state. I'm not the only one that will sense that taint of Wyrm corruption on us, and they _will_ either kill us or try to 'purify' us."

"I wouldn't say it's so bad, anyway," Shayah put in. "Do you really want to live your lives by the opinions of what the fools label 'corruption'?"

"You really are a Death Dancer, aren't you," Sky said flatly.

"Yes," Shayah replied. "Yes, I am."

"Well, fuck me."

"I already have," Shayah pointed out. "Multiple times."

"I told you," Digit said, smirking and shaking her head. "And really, what we're looking at here is we either find a way to fix it ourselves before we go back, or we learn to like it already."

Parody shook her head, wide-eyed, and climbed to her feet. "No," she said. "No. I'm not going to get involved in this. And I'm not going to let you psychos drag me into Wyrm corruption either. I'm leaving."

"Sit down, Parody," Sky snapped.

"No," Parody replied. "And you've done enough with these, too!" She reached over to grab the purple book bag.

"No you don't," Smoke said, grabbing a hold of her even as Sky yanked the bag out of her hands and tossed it back next to Digit.

"Let go of me, damn it," Parody said. "Fuck you! Let me go!"

Ignoring her protests, Skywalker and Smoke shifted form, pinning her down with the muscular bulk of their crinos forms as Digit and Shayah silently watched from the side. Parody continued to scream increasingly desparate obscenities at them, but wound up rather roughly manhandled, ripping off most of her clothing, in the process of attempting to restrain her. Finally she wound up being tied to a tree, half-naked, bound with their magical rope.

"Now," snarled Skywalker. "What was that you were saying about betraying us?"

"You're insane," Parody whimpered. "You're all insane." She was bleeding from several deep claw wounds.

"You picked a hell of a time to decide that," Smoke growled. "We've been working together for over a month now! And trying to steal our books, too? You're going to be sorry."

"Yeah, sorry I ever met you nutjobs."

Digit looked on quietly as they began to do unspeakable and agonizing things to the woman tied to the tree, and observing the play of dark images around their bodies. "I think," she murmured aside to Shayah, "that those two have definitely made _their_ choice, whether they realize it or not."

"All in all," Shayah replied, "I'm quite pleased with their progress."

"You intended this all along, didn't you," Digit said, although she found she couldn't really manage any malice in the accusation at the moment.

"Yes," Shayah answered. "Although, admittedly, you guys didn't exactly make it particularly difficult. You poor souls were practically begging for enlightenment, and it hardly took more than a nudge here and there for the most part. You will make excellent Dancers yet."

"They might call me crazy, but I _like_ what I see, and I'm not going to readily give that up," Digit said quietly.

"Good on you," Shayah said encouragingly. "While the Gate Watchers may be unwilling to accept enlightenment of that nature, I assure you that the Death Dancers have no such compunctions. You will be embraced as the true visionary you are."

" _I_ certainly don't think I'm insane or anything, even if I'm the only one that thinks that apparently," Digit commented with a smirk.

"Don't get too caught up in others' definitions of sanity," Shayah said. "Very often they will label 'insane' anyone who does not fit within the rigid definitions of what they deem acceptable in their society. But often it is the exceptionally brilliant, creative, and insightful who are deemed mad."

"And those two look to be being very 'creative' at the moment, too..." Digit muttered. Parody was screaming incoherently for the most part, and when she could manage words, it was pleading and begging for mercy.

"Indeed," Shayah agreed. "I'm almost a bit surprised that they went over the edge so quickly. I had expected to require at least a bit more work on them, but perhaps my nudges over the last several weeks have been sufficient."

"So it would seem."

Digit continued to stare on passively, unable to bring herself to look away, or even bother to speak against what they were doing in defense of Parody, to spare her and give her a chance. She could clearly see the vile, volatile images around them, bursting into existence then fading again, or seeping into them. Parody died slowly, in torturous agony, abused and molested by the two male Garou. They did not even stop there, before she was even dead, they began gnawing off bits of flesh and eating her alive.

When they were through, they left Parody's bloody, broken remains, what was left of them anyway, hanging on the tree. Smoke and Skywalker went back over toward the others, covered in blood as they returned to human form. Smoke looked a little stunned, hardly able to believe what he had just done, but Sky looked smug if anything else, quite pleased with himself and satisfied with how the matter had been resolved.

"Well done," Shayah said with a crooked grin, and just a touch of sarcasm. "You just tied up your packmate, skinned her, raped her, and ate her alive. I'm impressed. I didn't know you had it in you." She smirked broadly.

"Yeah, well," Sky said, licking a bit of blood off himself. "I never did like her anyway."

"I can't believe we just did that," Smoke said, flopping to the ground.

"Well, believe it," Digit said dryly. "And don't think you're gonna be going back _now_ , either."

"Um," Smoke said. "Did we get everything important out of our house already?"

"Doubtful," Digit said, shrugging.

"Hey, what happened to the elephant?" Smoke wondered, peering about.

Digit glanced around, then cast a locater spell, and shook her head. "It's gone. Maybe it was tied to Parody in some way, since she was the one who summoned it."

"Should we get another one?" Smoke asked.

"I don't even know how she managed to summon _that_ one," Sky replied.

"We don't really need it anymore anyway," Digit pointed out.

"I'll kind of miss it," Smoke said. "I liked that elephant."

"You'll miss the elephant more than Parody?" Digit said wryly.

"Well, yeah, pretty much," Smoke replied with a smirk.

"I'd suggest we stop and have some dinner before further discussing what we're going to do now," Digit said. "But it seems that you boys have already eaten. So how about I just conjure up something for me and Shayah and then we can figure out where we're going now?"

"Did I really do that?" Smoke said, a little incredulously.

"Yes, Smoke, you did," Digit replied, tracing a few quick runes to conjure up a couple trays of hearty food. She was growing a bit tired of pizza all the time, so she wound up bringing forth some ravioli and some big pieces of fresh garlic bread, arranged neatly on two trays.

"Mmm," Shayah said, taking her own tray and starting to eat. "Nice choice."

Sky chuckled softly and gave up with trying to get all the blood off of himself for the moment, and just settled in to talk for now. "Yeah, what _are_ we going to do now? Much as I never fancied following in my dear old dad's tracks, I'd like to think I'm at least realistic about things."

"What, so we went to all this trouble to get the books, supposedly to keep them away from the Death Dancers, just to turn them, and ourselves, over to them in the end anyway?" Smoke said.

"Looks like it," Sky said with a shrug, leaning back against a tree trunk casually and conjuring a cigarette, then lighting it.

"That's insane," Smoke commented.

"Yes, you are," Digit said wryly.

"It's not really so bad as all that," Shayah put in. "While the Gate Watchers have been working to stop you and hinder you at every turn, to keep you from getting your books as well, what have the Death Dancers been doing but readily helping you instead? The Dancers would not seek to keep from you what you had rightfully earned."

Smoke sighed in resignation. "Fine, fine, I get the idea. It would certainly be nice to have allies again and not have to skulk around hiding in the forest all the time, too. I'm a city wolf, I don't go in for all this wilderness shit when I can help it."

"Don't worry," Shayah assured him. "The Dancers have a nice place I can take you to with all the comforts of home."

"They have actual beds?" Smoke asked. "Central heating? Indoor plumbing?"

"All of the above."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Smoke said. "Let's go."

Shayah laughed softly, and finished up her dinner, brushing off her hands and climbing to her feet. Digit did likewise, setting aside her empty tray and gathering up the heavy book bag, making a note to herself to fix the weight runes before hauling it around again. But then, they wouldn't have to be hauling it around much longer anyway, even if not in the exact resolution which they had originally had in mind.

"I'll take you through and show you the way," Shayah said. "There's actually a Dream Gate on this world, but I'll put us down somewhere outside the base. I don't think the Gate Watchers have raided it in the intervening time, but best not to take unnecessary chances."

With a casting of runes, the four of them travelled to another world. It was a fairly desolate place, a parched and lifeless desert with only a distant, pale sun illuminating the sky. There were a few plants on the ground, scraggly and twisted, clinging to life, as well as the occasional movement of insects. In the distance, a settlement could be seen, one which might have been mistaken for a ghost town if it weren't for the lights shining out of some of the buildings and a plume of smoke trailing into the air.

"Welcome to hell?" Sky said with a wry smirk as he started off toward the town.


	20. In Hell, Nobody Can Hear You Scream

"Where are they now, Cable?" Trigger asked.

"There's really no telling," the other Gate Watcher said with a sigh. "We've been trying to track the rogue pack, but all we've got are scattered reports of sightings on random worlds, and no touching on the Dream Gates at all. We're not sure how they're getting around so quickly."

"I need to find them," Trigger said. "My son's with them, and I don't like the sort of trouble he's getting himself into. I've been searching for them for weeks without luck. They're awfully slippery. Any chance of tracing their implants?"

"Doubtful," Cable said. "The security measures are difficult enough to get through in the best of circumstances, and Digit's an expert hacker."

"I've tried sending them messages," Trigger said, shaking his head. "But they've either turned off reception of external messages or have been ignoring me. There has to be some way to find them. What about the Death Dancers? Any luck on pinning those down either?"

"Some, at least," Cable replied. "We figure they must be based on a world with a Dream Gate. Unfortunately, there are many such worlds that we do not have active bases on. We're spread thin enough just manning the existing inhabited worlds, but there are still many bases out there which have been abandoned since the end of the Bug War which we didn't have the resources to keep running. We suspect that they must have taken over one of these for their own purposes."

"They've probably got the Gate guarded, too," Trigger said. "It'll be dangerous to go through the planets systematically to find the right one. But there still may be equipment intact on those worlds we may be able to access remotely. Think you can manage it?"

"We'll see," Cable said, poking at the console to see what he could find. "The equipment's been abandoned for decades in some cases, but the self-maintainance should have kept it functional for the most part. Okay, got a connection with one of them. No sign of any tampering there, no life signs on the sensors or movement on the cameras. Probably aren't on that planet. I'll have to go through them all one by one and see if there's any blips..."

"See to it," Trigger said, nodding. "I'll be going over recent reports in the next room and getting some lunch if you find anything."

Trigger wished that he had been still on Sardinia when the attack had occured, thinking perhaps he might have made a difference in the fight, but by some lucky chance he had slipped out again through the Dream Gate hours before the attack. There was always work to be done, and little of it took place on backwater colony worlds which had been considered safe. How things changed. And not for the better.

* * *

"I wonder why this outpost was abandoned?" Sky wondered as they walked through the streets of the Death Dancer base.

"The Gate Watchers couldn't manage all the bases they had built during the Bug Wars," Digit replied. "When the immediate threat was over with, the ones on the less hospitable planets were slowly abandoned one by one."

"Can't really blame them for abandoning the place," Smoke said. "I don't know where this place gets its oxygen. And don't tell me, Digit, I don't really want to know so long as I can still breathe."

Shayah came up to a Garou outside one of the larger buildings, presumably the administration complex, and said, "Fukken, go inform the Master that I have returned, with company."

"Yes, Shayah," the man said, darting off into the building.

"His name is Fukken?" Sky said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Shayah replied. "Considering Death Dancer naming traditions, it's almost a bit surprising that more of us are not named after expletives."

"I see," Sky drawled.

"I was kind of hoping we'd get a chance to shower and sleep before meeting the guy in charge," Smoke said, a touch disappointed.

"I'm sure he won't mind the half-dried blood," Shayah replied with a smirk.

Digit silently looked around the place, the sense of darkness and wrongness far more palpable to her than the others. It was terrifying, the constant feeling of something not so very far away wanting to consume her. Was it really too late to back out? But where could she even go if she did? Hopelessness and resignation kept her rooted on the spot even a Fukken emerged from the building again to inform them that the Master would see them immediately.

Shayah led them inside the building and wove her way through the corridors down to an office at the end of the hall. There was a man seated at the desk, with several El'dari books placed nearby, one of them open in front of him. He did not look particularly imposing, but they recognized his image as that of Robert Jones, from the security images from Tau Ceti that seemed a lifetime ago now.

"Master," Shayah said, bowing to him as she came in. "I present to you, three former Gate Watchers, ready for enlightenment. We also have the full collection of the El'dari books which you did not obtain yourself."

"Excellent," the man said, giving them a positively wicked grin. "My name is Jez'kai, but you may call me Master. Now, where are the books?"

Sky said with a smirk, "I'd rather just call you Bob, myself. But Jez'kai will suffice."

Jez'kai smirked right back at him. "You will yet learn how things work here. There is one Master here, and that is me. Serving me is not such the arduous task, and there can be great rewards for submission and good service. But disobedience will not be tolerated."

"Yeah, I get the drift," Sky replied. "And I'm not caring to make any secret of the fact that I don't like the situation one bit. But what can you do?" He shrugged. "The Gate Watchers won't be very happy with us one bit. So here we are."

"I'm sure you will get used to the realities of the situation," Jez'kai said. "I'll be assigning Shayah to take care of you boys for the moment. I'll deal with the girl myself, however. Wait for me here," he said aside to Digit as he climbed to his feet. "I'm sure you all must be tired after such a long journey, but there is much yet to be done. Come, let's get you two settled in."

The others filed out of the office, closing the door behind them and leaving Digit alone in Jez'kai's office. She didn't like the sounds of things one bit, and finding herself with the remaining El'dari books, she compulsively scooped them up and shoved them into the knit bag she was still carrying around. She was glad that she hadn't given it back to Skywalker, no matter how heavy and unwieldy it was getting.

Thinking quickly, but not really thinking things through first, Digit cast a quick rune to bring her through into the ethereal realm. She staggered involuntarily for a moment as she landed on the other side, completely unprepared for the intensity of the spiritual pollution which plagued the area. The Dream World was, by and large, idyllic and lush, but she hadn't even managed to cross through all the way into there, meeting resistance midway through like a dark sludge. It was like all her unpleasant visions had suddenly been thrust into reality.

"Fuck," Digit uttered, pulling her bag close as she tried to push through it all and silently cursing herself for her mistake. Jez'kai would not be very happy with her if he found her trying to escape like this, so soon after she'd arrived. She could only hope that he'd be kept busy with the others for long enough to get out of here. She hated to leave them behind, but there was little enough hope for them after all that had happened, and if she wanted to keep the books out of the wrong hands, she had to take what opportunity she could find, whatever the consequences. The memory of what they'd done to Parody was disturbing, and she hated to think that they might do the same to her if they had cause to.

Digit trudged along, casting runes as she went and trying to force her way past the constant feeling that things were trying to reach out and grab her. Just as she thought she was finally getting out of it, something beneath her feet gave way and she went tumbling into what seemed like a thick pool of black ooze. She couldn't breathe, she thought she was drowning, or suffocating, and began to panic.

Desparate runes flashed through her mind, pieced together quickly into a pattern, linked with the power rune, glowing brightly in her mind. She wasn't sure if she was going to manage it without words or even gestures, but the power came forth nonetheless. She found herself gasping for breath in the midst of a sunlit meadow, still covered in slime, but the book bag still firmly in hand.

After a few minutes of panting and realizing that she had escaped, she was safe, the full impact of what she had done started trickling through to her. She had abandoned her packmates, turned her back on both the Gate Watchers and the Death Dancers, and everyone would be hunting her now.

Everyone except one person. "Fizzik," she muttered. "Fizzik. Fizzik."

"You again?" the goblin said out of nowhere, approaching her. "And alone this time? Tsk, you're a mess. You can't come in my house looking like that. We're just going to have to get you cleaned up first. Come on, let's get that nasty stuff off you, and we'll go home and I'll make you a cake and some tea and you can tell me all about it."


	21. Who You Gonna Call?

Digit was exhausted by the time Fizzik got her back to his house, so much so that she thought that her spell must be strained to its limits by recent events. Then she realized that she had forgotten to cast it on the food she had eaten before they'd travelled to the Death Dancer base. Too tired now to even think about trying to put the runes together, she fell asleep in moments on the bed the goblin provided.

She had no idea how long she slept, but when she slowly came to waking again, she found her mind clear and her thoughts more in order than they had been in weeks. Also, she was extremely hungry. Climbing out of bed, Digit spotted the book bag, clean and sitting on the floor next to the bed. Gathering up the heavy bag, she waded through junk to head out into the next room to find Fizzik.

"Ah, there you are," Fizzik said. "You were really out like a light. I thought you were going to sleep forever at that rate! I considered trying to find a prince to kiss you and wake you up, but frankly you're no sleeping beauty."

"You'd have had better luck with a princess, anyway," Digit said wryly.

"I hope you'll stay for breakfast," he said. "I'm sure you must be starved. I have some lovely cake and tea here hot and piping, ready to serve! Come, come, sit down, pull up a chair."

"Alright, alright," Digit reluctantly said, setting down her bag next to the kitchen table and taking a seat. She figured it was pretty silly not to trust the goblin at this point if he hadn't molested her while she slept or something. She was, after all, relatively safe and still alive, which was more than she could give others at the moment. Quieting a pang of guilt about Parody, she proceeded to fill up on the food Fizzik provided.

"Feeling better now, I suppose?" Fizzik said. "What's happened, anyway? You passed out too fast to give me a real update. What happened to your friends? Did you get all the books?"

"I've got them all," she replied. "Even the ones the Death Dancers had gotten. I'm afraid my friends are in a bit of trouble, though." She sighed softly. She felt terrible about abandoning them like that, too. Many mistakes haunted her recent memories, and most of them she could only think as being squarely her own fault. How could she have been so blind as to never notice Shayah was a Dancer, or to have not spotted the Wyrm corruption of her friends until it was too late? Or her own corruption, for that matter...

"Nasty business, Death Dancers," Fizzik said. "Well, they haven't come to me, anyway. And you can't really stay here safely much longer, after all you slept, so where are you planning on heading next?"

"No idea," Digit said, shaking her head. "Can you get me to a world where there isn't any Gate, or at least one of the other old abandoned outpost worlds? The latter would likely be preferable." She didn't really care to spend anymore time camping in the sticks if she didn't have to.

"Can do," Fizzik said. "And it won't take much, since I can take you straight to the Gate."

Digit finished eating, and followed the goblin off to a Dream Gate leading to a quiet, forgotten planet. It was a bit chilly outside, and the place not amazingly comforting to human life, but once inside it was warmer and the air easier to breathe. There hadn't even been a Gate Station set up here, and the place looked to have been abandoned since the end of the Bug War.

Dropping the book bag heavily onto a table, Digit sank into a chair and sighed deeply, on the verge of barely-restrained tears. The weight of everything came crushing down on her, and she felt as though she had lost everything and betrayed everyone she had ever cared about. What was really the use in fighting it? Why had she done this? Perhaps staying with the Death Dancers would not have really been so bad. But no, she wasn't about to ignore the warning images any longer. She had to believe that there was some hope, somehow.

Shaking her head and pushing away her thoughts of despair for the moment, Digit went to check her messages for the first time in weeks. She'd hesitated to do so for fear of being traced, but she didn't really care anymore. She frowned a bit as she read over several messages from Trigger, Smoke's father, each of them sounding more worried than the last. Hating to think what she might have to tell the man about his son, she went to send a message back to him, stating little more than her location and that she would have to elaborate what was going on in person.

"You know," said a voice from somewhere. "It might have been more helpful for you to have had a change of heart _before_ you allowed them to kill me."

"Parody!" Digit said, jumping a bit as she looked over to see a mutilated ghostly form nearby.

"In the flesh," Parody replied. "Or a reasonable facsimile thereof, anyway."

"Oh, Gaia," Digit muttered, looking away.

"Hey, don't worry, just because I'm dead doesn't mean I'm bitter about it or anything. And especially not angry at you for calmly standing by while those I thought were my friends ripped me to pieces."

Digit sighed, burying her face in her hands. "Look, I'm really sorry about this all. I wasn't really thinking straight at the time."

"Yep, I understand, happens all the time," the ghost replied brightly. "You're just sitting there, minding your own business, when suddenly you start hallucinating vividly about impending doom and Wyrm corruption! And then, of course, instead of trying to do something to stop it, you ignore it until it's too late. Wow, you should get a medal for that! The Gate Watchers are going to be really impressed."

"Maybe there's something I can do to set all this right," Digit muttered.

"Perhaps, but I doubt it," Parody said. "You've fucked up pretty badly here along the way. But that's okay. I'm planning on haunting you for the rest of your days, so maybe you'll figure out something along the way. It'd take a miracle, though."

"That's wonderful," Digit said dryly. "As if I weren't already feeling guilty enough about this all."

"Hey, just trying to keep things in perspective here," Parody said. "But then, just think, am I really even here at all, or is it just your own mind playing tricks on you in some burst of masochism?"

"Right now, I don't actually even care."

Digit sighed again and sifted through the book bag, pulling out the ones she had retrieved from Jez'kai to identify them half-heartedly. She attempted to ignore the incessant chatter of the annoying ghost, and the miniature flying pink elephant which had for some reason appeared again. Maybe she really _was_ just hallucinating again. This all may just be a clear sign that she really was insane.

After skimming through the books, she quickly dismissed several of the methods mentioned as serious possibilities. Necromancy and time travel were not really things she cared to touch with a ten-foot pole. The spells which did seem more reasonable and plausible, however, were much too complicated for her to hope to cast anytime soon.

Her reading was interrupted again by the door opening and two Gate Watchers coming inside. She recognized them as Trigger and Cable. After closing the door behind them, Trigger stared into the room and said, "What the fuck? Why is there a wraith and a tiny flying pink elephant with you?"

"Oh, thank Gaia," Digit said. "You see them too? Here I was starting to think I was going insane again."

"I'm just hoping that it isn't the offspring of the one you were reported to be flying around on a while ago," Trigger said. "Then I would have to be concerned. Not that I'm not already. You've got a lot of explaining to do, girl."

"Yes, I think I do," Digit said with a sigh. "Better take a seat, and promise not to shoot me until I'm done?"

Once they were settled for the moment and agreed to hear her out, Digit went into a lengthy discussion on all that had happened over the last several weeks, ignoring occasional sarcastic interruptions from Parody. Trigger's look grew more and more grim as her story unfolded, but he didn't interject anything or ask questions until she was finished and had brought them up to current events, on how she had stolen the books and fled and came here.

"That's quite some adventure you've been through," Trigger commented. "I just have one question. What the _fuck_ were you thinking?"

"Good question," Digit muttered. "But time enough to deal with whatever should be done with me later. Skywalker and your son are still in the Death Dancer base, so far as I know, but I don't know if they still might be saved. There's too many Dancers there for a direct assault, even if the place weren't so messed up on the spirit side."

"Nuke the place and be done with it," Trigger said with a snort, standing up and turning away. "It'll be the kindest thing for them to put them out of their misery before they dig themselves even deeper." He shook his head grimly. "They really should have known better, and I expected better of them. And I expected better of _you_ , too."

"I was really hoping I could still save them somehow," Digit said in a small voice.

"You're dreaming, girl," Trigger said bluntly. "They're lost. Get over it. They were already lost before you ever left them with the Death Dancers. Now the task is just to clean up this mess. But as for you. You're going to take those books back to headquarters on Terra and show people how to use them. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," Digit said, sighing and starting to put the books back into the bag again. Whatever enthusiasm she had had toward trying to be heroic and set things right again had been snuffed out in a moment by Trigger's words.


	22. Don't Piss Off the Bad Guy

Jez'kai was most displeased to find the girl missing, and even moreso to discover that she had taken his books with her, but he remained outwardly calm about the matter. It would not do to fly into a rage and start randomly killing subordinates or damaging his own headquarters, after all. But that didn't mean he couldn't take it out on someone. The two new recruits did not particularly like being chained up, but they needed to be broken in somehow, and someone had to take the fall for their comrade's actions.

"Shayah," Jez'kai said. "You should not have brought them back to me before they were ready to submit."

"I apologize, Master. I had thought they were ready. They had even asked me to bring them here themselves."

"You made a mistake. Don't think that I am unforgiving of mistakes, however. Bring back the books to me, and the girl, alive, and this unpleasant incident will be forgiven and forgotten. Come back to me empty-handed, and, well, let's just say you should probably not come back empty-handed, hmm? Go."

"Yes, Master." Shayah bowed deeply to him and hurried out of the complex.

"This was not what I signed up for," Skywalker groaned, straining futilely against the enchanted restraints.

"Oh?" Jez'kai drawled, turning toward him. "And how, praytell, do I know that you did not simply plan this all beforehand in order to steal those books out from under my nose, hmm?"

"Fuck, if I'd known she was going to do that, I'd have killed her myself before we even came here, like we did that annoying chick."

"Would you really?" Jez'kai said with a quirk of a grin. "You may yet get the opportunity. I do not take kindly to betrayal, but I am not shy in rewarding loyal service. Unlike those who would stand in your way and try to keep power from you, snatching it right of your hands."

"Yeah, so how about you start with letting me go? I haven't done shit here."

Jez'kai brought down a lash hard against Skywalker's bared chest, causing the young man to let out a bark of pain at the touch of silver in the whip. "You will show me respect. You do not give orders to me. You want me to let you go? Then beg for it. Plead. Proclaim how you will serve me loyally and apologize for your crude tongue."

"Oh, fuck this," Sky muttered, then cried out again as the whip struck him a second time.

* * *

Smoke, restrained in the next room, could not hear Sky's screams of pain as he was tortured. He was sick of being stuck here and trying to figure out some way to free himself of his bonds. It was too dark to see very well, but he called forth a rune light to mind, managing to clumsily draw the shape in the air with one finger. He blinked for a moment into the guttering, pale light.

Upon closer inspection, he saw that the shackles holding him were engraved with runes themselves, El'dari runes. He recognized the holding runes even if he couldn't see them all from where he was. Maybe there was a way to disrupt them or deactivate them. Shifting himself around as much as he could, he tried to get a better view of the runes being used, scanning in the patterns and reading them over in his mind, matching them to the runes he knew of and had used himself.

There was an opening rune. He couldn't see everything it lead to, but he figured that must be the way to get the shackles open to release himself. He took a deep breath and concentrated, channeling a tiny spark of energy into the opening rune to activate it. Suddenly, a jolt of pain shot through his body, then another, and another. Silently he cursed himself for not thinking of that. Instead of opening, the shackles had activated a trap of some sort.

He couldn't say how long the pain continued on and off in irregular bursts, but eventually it stopped, and he opened his eyes again to blink into Jez'kai's face. The man did not go in for the cliched goatee, prefering instead the clean-shaven look. His rune light had gone out without his concentration, but the normal lighting of the room was on now, and he had to squint for a moment.

"So, trying to escape, were you?" Jez'kai drawled. "And here I had thought you were the smarter one of the group."

"No, sir," Smoke said quietly. "I wasn't going to escape. But these shackles are uncomfortable."

Jez'kai chuckled lightly in amusement. "I see. And I suppose you would like me to take them off of you, hmm? Have you learned your lesson now? Are you ready to serve me?"

Smoke sighed softly and closed his eyes for a moment, and murmured, "Yes, Master. I will serve you. Please release me."

"Excellent," Jez'kai said with a small grin, and with a flick of his hand, the shackles around Smoke's wrists and ankles popped open, dropping him to the floor. Smoke staggered slowly to his feet again, still a little disoriented from the extended spell.

"What is your bidding, Master?" Smoke asked quietly. He was exhausted, not having had a chance to sleep first and having spent hours restrained in this room.

"You will join your friend in compiling the information in the books which you can remember," Jez'kai said. "There are datapads available in the room down the hall for your use."

"Yes, Master," Smoke said. "But I am exhausted and would probably pass out in the middle of it. May I sleep first, or at least get some food so that I may cast a stimulant spell on it and get to work right away?" He wasn't even sure if he could manage a conjuration spell at the moment.

"Yes, of course," Jez'kai replied, waving a hand to gesture at him to follow and heading out of the room. "I will send Fukken to bring you something to eat."

"Thank you, Master," Smoke murmured. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Jez'kai did not seem all that terrible if one didn't cross him.

Jez'kai led him to a small meeting room a little ways down the hall. There were datapads scattered across the table, and Skywalker was seated at one end of it, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, absently poking at one of them. Smoke blinked for a moment as he stared at the angry red welts crisscrossing Sky's chest, back, and legs. When Jez'kai left him to it, Smoke crossed over toward him to get a closer look.

"What happened to you?" Smoke wondered.

"I learned the painful lesson of 'Don't be an asshole to somebody who can kick your ass'," Sky replied dryly. "It's okay. It's nothing that won't regenerate eventually." Even Smoke could tell there was something about it he wasn't mentioning, but he didn't press it. "You look like you fared a bit better, hmm?"

"Yeah, I only managed to torture myself," Smoke said with a smirk. "Accidentally triggered some sort of trap spell and hung there in pain until the Master came in and stopped it."

"Sounds fun," Sky commented lightly. "We could have had it a hell of a lot worse, really. Let's get to work."

"At least we should have most of the information between us," Smoke said. "Scanned into our implants if nothing else."

"Yeah," Sky said. "Might have missed some, but let's see what we have first and compare notes, and see what all is missing, if anything."

Smoke was too tired to concentrate on things too closely for the moment, and he had to wonder how Sky could keep at it. Fukken came in shortly and brought them a tray with two big bowls of stew and some bread, and left it on the table for them. Smoke unashamedly cast the wakefulness spell on his bowl, and was unsurprised when Sky followed his cue and did likewise. Digit might have started experiencing hallucinatory side effects after weeks of use, but once couldn't hurt much. If nothing else, it made the otherwise questionable stew fairly delicious.

After several hours of piecing together information, they discovered that there were three books that neither of them had actually looked through. This was, however, primarily because those particular books hadn't seemed very interesting, and the books which had proven most interesting had the most complete information on them.

"Well, we've probably got everything important that was in those books, anyway," Sky said. "Unless we missed some hidden gems somewhere."

"It'll do well enough until the books are recovered, anyway," Smoke said. "Fucking Digit. And here I thought she was on our side."

"Might not even get them back at all," Sky said with a snort. "If Digit uses them to bribe her way back into the Gate Watchers' good graces, it's going to be hard to recover them from them if they decide to put them somewhere secure. But either way, that's not our problem to deal with at the moment. Shayah was sent back off to find them and bring them back. At least if anyone could manage it, she might be able to do it."

"Let's hope so, anyway," Smoke said. "Let's get this information to the Master. I'm sure he will be most interested in perusing it, even if the data is incomplete."

"Right," Sky said, climbing slowly to his feet and wincing a bit as he brushed sensitive areas against the furniture.

"You okay?" Smoke asked. "Maybe I could heal a bit of that for you."

"No," Sky said sharply. "Leave it. I'm fine. Let's go see Jez'kai."

"If you say so," Smoke said a bit dubiously, shrugging and collecting up the datapads and heading for the door. There was definitely something Sky wasn't talking about, he thought. But it wasn't really his business.


	23. Do the Smart Thing For Once

Digit slung the heavy bag over her shoulder and headed for the Gate. Trigger and Cable had left before her, but they weren't heading back to Terra, leaving her to make her way there on her own. She paused thoughtfully in front of the Dream Gate, ignoring the bitter air as she considered her options.

"You'll do what he says if you know what's good for you," Parody piped up. "But, of course, you probably won't do that. You haven't done the smart thing in your life in quite a while. I bet you'll wind up running back to the Death Dancers again or trying some stupid heroics instead."

"He just said to go," Digit replied. "He didn't say I had to go right now, or anything about what I might do afterward."

"You're an idiot," Parody commented.

"I was kind of hoping I still might be able to rescue the boys, though," Digit said, sighing.

"Digit," Parody said, hovering directly in front of Digit to give her a good view of her gruesome ghostly form. "Look at me. These boys committed murder, and plenty of other heinous crimes on top of that. What they did to me alone would be worth the death penalty in plenty of places. Whatever extenuating circumstances there might have been does not excuse the fact that they did it, and for no reason other than because I dared to stand up to Wyrm corruption."

Digit stared at her for several long moments. "You... have a point," she conceded.

"Gaia be praised, she _can_ listen occasionally!" Parody said.

"I think I'll just go to Terra," Digit said, going over to poke the console near the Gate to announce her arrival, and heading through.

She could at least be grateful for the fact that Parody decided to disappear before heading over that way, as she didn't really care to explain her presence to the people at headquarters too, never mind the fact that the ghost would probably blurt out things she'd rather keep a little bit more quiet at the moment. The Gate Station on Terra was a vast, overblown affair, much as one might expect of a hub of interstellar travel and commerce. Gift shops were arranged at various points, and information booths, and a sign off to one side pointed the direction to rental cars and mass transport.

It had been years since she had been back here, but it didn't take her too long to get her bearings again. Shifting the weight of the book bag on her shoulder, she headed over to where the sign directed. There were hovercars lined up in the parking lot, and a bus was emptying itself of passengers heading into the Gate Station. Not really caring to rent a car for just herself or attempting to teleport nearby, Digit just called for a taxi instead.

A few minutes later, a bright yellow hovercab landed in front of her, and she climbed inside. "Where to, miss?" the driver asked.

Digit was a little surprised that this cab had an actual driver instead of just being fully automated. "Gate Watcher headquarters," she replied, settling into the passenger seat and setting the bag at her feet.

"Right away, miss," he replied, directing the cab to take off and flying off away from the Gate Station.

Digit let her thoughts drift a bit on the way, staring out the window as they went. Were Smoke and Sky really lost to them? She couldn't help but think it was at least in part her own fault, if it were so. She could have stopped them. She could have saved Parody. She could have, and should have, noticed there was something off about Shayah the minute she showed up. So many could-haves and should-haves, but none of it changed the fact that it had happened, and this entire mess had come about because of it. She felt at least in part responsible for how things had turned out.

She was shaken from her musings when she noticed that the hovercar was flying north, into Canada, and not south toward the headquarters. "Hey," she said, glancing aside to the driver. "This isn't the way to the Gate Watcher HQ. Where are you going?"

"I'm going right where you told me to," the man said innocently.

"No, you're not," Digit said, frowning. "Turn this cab around right now."

"Sorry, can't do, I already locked in the destination."

Digit snorted and rolled her eyes, and proceeded to hack into the hovercab's computer via her implants. The cab's destination appeared to be set, not to the headquarters, but to someplace in Ontario instead. What the hell was going on here? Under the current circumstances, she couldn't assume it was an honest mistake, that he'd just punched in the wrong coordinates, but immediately thought that the Death Dancers were after her and waiting for her there.

Starting to panic, Digit tried to wrest control of the cab and reset the destination. Unfortunately she proved a bit too hasty in her panic, and the cab spun wildly out of control, careening through the air.

"Hey, what are you doing?" the driver said, panicking himself as he tried to fight her for control of the vehicle.

"Damn it, stop it, argh," Digit snarled. The cab was actually very close to its destination before she'd noticed it, but now it was spiraling out of control and heading straight for the ground at a sharp angle. "Fuck," Digit muttered.

Weaving rapid runes in front of her, Digit surrounded the cab with a telekinetic net, slowing their descent and cushioning their fall. The cab struck the ground with a jolt, but otherwise it and its occupants appeared unharmed for the most part. Digit gasped for a moment, panting briefly before going to climb out, dragging the book bag out along with her.

"What the fuck were you doing there?" the driver said, climbing out and shaking a finger at her accusingly. "You're not supposed to pull shit like that. You could have gotten us both killed!"

"Sorry," Digit said, shaking her head. "But I think I've got bigger problems than that..."

That quickly became apparent even as she started piecing together teleportation runes to get out of there. Before she could get the spell off, she felt energy prickling at her skin as some ethereal binding net surrounded her. Death Dancers, on Terra? They hadn't had any serious operations here in decades. The place was far too well developed and defended for them to slip through the cracks easily as they often did on other worlds. Even as she felt herself being dragged off into a nearby building against her will, she sent off a distress call to the Gate Watchers through her implants, hoping that they might respond.

"So, you thought you might escape, and betray the Master, hmm?"

"Shayah," Digit uttered. She'd been pulled into an old warehouse that didn't look like anyone had bothered to clean it since the Bug War.

Shayah closed the door to the street from across the room, with little more than a flick of a finger. "So good of you to join me," she said. "Now, are we going to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"

"Let me go, Shayah," Digit said firmly.

"The hard way it is," Shayah said lightly. "Have a seat."

Digit found herself telekinetically shoved into a chair, and bound to it with invisible ropes. "You're not going to get away with this, you know. Not here."

"So trite," Shayah said, shaking her head. "I guess you mean you want it the hard way. And here I had thought you might be reaching enlightenment. Clearly I was mistaken. But no, I assure you, this building is quite well defended. Perfectly well enough to give time to go anywhere else before anyone can break through."

"How did you know I'd be coming here? There's any number of planets in the galaxy I could have gone to afterward," Digit said.

"Reasonable deduction. It was either here, or Sardinia," Shayah said. "You don't have any particular attachment to any other planet. So I set up little traps for you on both places for wherever you might have decided to go back to. I did not think that you would hide out on remote, sparsely inhabited worlds forever."

"Shayah, let me go," Digit said, struggling against her bonds, but they held firm. It was futile. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to take you, and these," she indicated the bag of books, "back to my Master for a well-deserved reward. But first, I'm going to have a little fun with you, and make sure you never even consider doing anything so stupid again. Let's get started then, shall we? How does it feel to be helpless? To know that another person has complete power over you, and there's nothing you can do about it?"

Shayah went over to Digit to roughly remove her clothing, making not even a token effort to be gentle or careful about it, then tossed the shredded tatters of cloth aside. This must have been how Parody had felt, before she was killed, Digit thought. She wasn't sure whether she'd want to survive this or not, though, considering what sort of situation she'd likely fall into if she were taken back alive.

"Mm," Shayah murmured softly, grinning wickedly at her. "The smell of your fear is delicious."

Suddenly, a dark shape appeared in front of Shayah, and said, "Boo!"

Shayah jumped back in surprise. "What the--" She didn't have time to wonder, though, as she was abruptly hurled into a stack of boxes nearby.

Whether from Shayah's distraction or her unexpected benefactor's intervention, Digit found herself free of her bonds. Wasting no time to take advantage of the situation, she sprang to her feet and flicked runes from her fingers to tightly bind Shayah instead and prevent her from casting anything else at her.

Digit looked toward the ghostly form. "Parody. Why did you help me?"

"You don't deserve it," Parody replied. "But if I'd stood by and just watched and done nothing, I'd have been no better than you."

Digit cast her gaze to the floor, and said quietly, "Well. Thank you."


	24. This Is a Warehouse, Not a Whorehouse

"Digit," Shayah murmured plaintively, looking up from where she was restrained on the floor as she slowly regained her senses.

"You're not going to ask me to let you go, too, are you," Digit muttered, turning to step over toward her.

"Oh, no, not at all," Shayah replied. "I mean, you've got me right where you want me. I'm interested in seeing what you're going to do with that now. And you're already naked, for that matter."

Digit stared at her for a long moment, unable to deny the fact that she found the woman attractive. "I'm not going to fuck you, Shayah," she replied firmly, though.

"No?" Shayah drawled. "We have before, after all. I know how much you like it."

"Shayah..." Digit murmured, stepping forward and hauling her up onto the chair to restrain her there, then leaning so close she could feel her breath on her skin.

"Yeah, something like that," Shayah said with a grin. "But I'm afraid you'll have to get my own clothing off yourself, seeing as I can't move like this."

Digit gazed at her some more, feeling her own lust rising inexplicably. She snarled quietly, then slapping Shayah hard across the face and backing away to a more comfortable distance. This was ridiculous. She should be getting out of here and back to headquarters, prisoner in tow or not. Somewhere along the line, Parody had disappeared again, too.

"Mm, that's more like it," Shayah said. "Do that some more, why don't you?"

"Shayah!" Digit growled, spinning around to look at her heatedly again. "What are you doing? You're still trying to corrupt me anyway even though you're all tied up?"

"What better time to do it?" Shayah said lightly. "Besides, you know full well you're not nearly as pure and innocent as you might like to give the impression of. Why deny it, and why deny your own desires?"

Digit reached over and smacked her again. "Whatever you're doing, stop it already."

"Are you going to make me?" Shayah asked, looking almost hopeful in the way she grinned.

"If I have to," Digit replied.

"Pity there's no good implements for that around here," Shayah commented. "No whips and chains, nor dildos, strapons, or any of the more fun things. But I'm sure you can come up with something, hmm?"

"I'm almost surprised you didn't set up camp in a BDSM warehouse," Digit said dryly.

"I couldn't find any available or I might have. So, how does it feel to have power over someone, hmm? You could do anything you wanted to me and I wouldn't be able to fight back. What do you really want to do to me?"

"Power corrupts," Digit said, glaring at her and trying to fight back her own urges.

"Corruption is such a loaded term," Shayah said. "I tend to prefer to think of it as enlightenment. But sometimes it can be all the more effective, hmm?"

Digit growled and slapped her again. "I said stop it. Shut up. I need something better to hit you with. And a gag, I think."

"Oh, that sounds positively delightful," Shayah said. "Now you're talking."

"I'm afraid I'm missing the appropriate implements, though. Let's see if I can conjure them up." Digit proceeded to trace some runes in the are carefully. It wasn't really much different from conjuring food, at the base principle of it, but concentration was an issue. One would generally get exactly what they were thinking of, whether they realized that's what they were thinking of or not. In this case, the implements which her spell created were a fair bit more harsh than she had really intended.

"Oh, I like the way you think," Shayah said, grinning broadly as she looked over to see the silver gag and the vicious looking whip Digit had brought forth.

"I figured you would," Digit said with a smirk, reaching over to stick the gag in her mouth. "Now shut up already. I don't need your words to lead me into corruption. I can find the way myself."

She could tell that Shayah was quite pleased with the situation regardless, but she didn't really care at the moment. Her own lust and desire was overpowering her. She pulled Shayah away from the chair and stripped her nude, pushed her front against the wall, and proceeded to beat her mercilessly with the whip. It wasn't normally her thing, but for some reason it felt really good at the moment. Perhaps some part of her mind was convinced that she really could convince Shayah to do what she wanted in that way.

Shayah, however, definitely was enjoying it far too much, and Digit found herself only all the more aroused by the flogging. Digit smirked faintly and set the whip aside for the moment, and traced a few more runes to summon up a strapon. She wasn't trying too hard to concentrate on it at the moment, trusting her mind to know what it really wanted, and apparently this time it really wanted a strapon with silver spiked dildos on both ends.

"Mmh," Digit murmured, staring at it for a moment before turning Shayah around to face her and look at her. "You look positively gleeful." She chuckled softly and went to put it on, sliding her own end of the dildo inside of herself and drawing in a sharp breath at the feeling of it. It was a fair bit harsher than what she usually went in for. But it was apparently what she really wanted, and in some way it felt absolutely wonderful.

There was something more than a little liberating about giving in to her own desires, heedless of whatever might come afterward. She grabbed onto Shayah and slid the other end of the dildo inside of her slowly, taking her time about it to make sure the other woman could really feel it. Shayah was clearly not even the least put off by the feel of the silver as Digit had at least been somewhat, enjoying it in its fullness as Digit proceeded to fuck her hard. Lust filled her senses, and she gave in to it fully without restraint or thought of holding back. She readily pounded through one orgasm after another.

"I hate to interrupt this delightful session," said a voice in her mind. "But there's people outside trying to get in. Your Gate Watcher friends, I presume."

"Fuck," Digit muttered, pulling out and releasing Shayah from her bonds, and removing the gag.

"That's what you were doing, yes," Shayah commented with a smirk. "But I'm afraid at the moment that doing something other than fucking would probably be prudent. We can continue later, elsewhere." She grinned at Digit and traced her fingertips down her cheek seductively.

Digit removed the strapon and proceeded to gather up her toys to hide the evidence. She hardly had a chance to snatch up the whip again when the door burst open and several Gate Watchers stormed inside, one of them grabbing the book bag which had been dropped carelessly near the doorway. Not really caring to try to explain the situation to them at the moment, she grabbed Shayah's arm and brought forth runes to her mind, dragging them both straight to the Dream World without so much as a gesture made.

"Wait, the books--" Shayah said, too late as they were on the other side already.

"Fuck the books," Digit retorted. "If I sent them the rune data now, at least I'll still have more or less done what I was told to, but I really don't care to explain to them why I was fucking a Death Dancer in a warehouse just now."

"But, Jez'kai will want the books," Shayah said.

"Fuck Jez'kai too," Digit snorted. "I don't really care what he wants either. But I know perfectly well what _I_ want, and it doesn't involve bowing to either him _or_ the Gate Watchers. Now, are you with me, or are you going to try to drag me back to Jez'kai again? Or go back empty-handed?"

Shayah stared at her thoughtfully for a moment, a somewhat curious expression, and said, "No, I'll stay with you for the moment. I'm not going to go back to him without those books, anyway. I'm quite interested in seeing what you're planning on doing, though."

"Let's get somewhere safe for starters and figure out where we're going to go from here," Digit said. "Fizzik, Fizzik, Fizzik."

"Ah, you're back," said the goblin, appearing promptly before them. "And you've brought your lovely friend, too. Where do you want to go today?"

"We need to get to a world with no Dream Gate on it," Digit said. "Or if it has one, one that the Gate Watchers never set up a base on. Preferably a planet that's more or less comfortably habitable for humans?"

"I can do that," Fizzik said. "I can certainly do that. Come on right this way. It'll be a fair trip, so we'd best get started, hmm?"

"That's okay," Digit said, following after him as he led them off. "Once there, I can set up a keyed beacon to make it easier for us to get back to it if necessary, but still be invisible to those it isn't specifically attuned to."

"I see you don't have your bag anymore, either," Fizzik asked. "What happened to it?"

"The Gate Watchers have it," Digit told him. "I imagine they'll take it back to their headquarters and secure it up so that the Death Dancers will have a snowball's chance in hell of getting it now."

"Excellent," Fizzik said. "I would not really mind them so much if it weren't for who they had decided to ally themselves with. But you've done me a great favor with this, and I hope that my assistance has helped to repay that."

"You've been very helpful, Fizzik," Digit said. "Can I expect any further assistance after this if it's needed?"

"Well, if it's really needed, I do owe you one after all," Fizzik replied with a shrug. "Assuming my rivals don't find out about it, anyway."

"Halt!" said a voice abruptly. Figures emerged from the trees around them, and the three of them found themselves surrounded by a group of unfriendly-looking Fae, led by a trio of elves dressed up in ornate armor and pointing wicked-looking swords at them.

"Oh, fuck," Digit muttered.


	25. Pointy Ears With Pointy Objects

"I'm not with them!" Fizzik squeaked, darting off into the trees before anyone could stop him.

"The cowardly goblin is not worth our time," the elf in the center scoffed disdainfully, turning his attention toward the two naked shapeshifters armed only with dildos. "I am Gethin, of the Winter Court. You will explain yourselves at once, and be certain to mention why that which is rightfully ours is not yet in our hands."

Digit's eyes widened as she realized who they were. The Unseelie, finally come to demand the books which they had been promised? She had made the mistake of thinking that they would be safe in the Dream World, and she flushed in embarassment for a moment at the realization that she was still naked. But there wasn't any time for recriminations. She had to think fast.

"If it's the books you seek, I'm afraid we don't have them," Digit replied. "We were just on the way to deliver them to you, finally all collected, when we were waylaid by the Gate Watchers, who stole them from us. I'm afraid if you wish to recover them now, you will have to take the matter up with them. Were they not supposed to also be your allies, after all?"

Gethin looked at her for a long moment, considering her words. "The Watchers of the Gates would keep from us what is ours? This is an outrage! We will have those books, one way or another, if we must cease all travel through the Gateways of the Dreaming in order to force their hand into returning them to us!"

Digit relaxed a bit and let out an internal sigh of relief that the Unseelie's ire was now directed at someone else for the moment. Even Shayah looked a bit surprised at that. "The Gate Watchers did nothing but hinder us every step of the way," Digit said, realizing that the Fae would not know her for a Gate Watcher under the circumstances anyway, and just as well. "But in spite of that we did diligently gather up every last one of those books for you. I expect they've already taken them back to their headquarters now, though."

"They will be ours," Gethin said. "As for the two of you. I am certain that you would not seek to be running off on the eve of our celebration. You will return home with us and remain until the books are securely in our hands at last, and you shall be special guests at the celebration feast afterward. Come!"

Not allowing word of objection, the Fae escorted them off through the forest again. It wasn't long before they came to what appeared to be some sort of fairy-tale castle spiring out of a clearing in the forest. Admittedly, it was probably more from the sort of fairy tale which had later been sanitized by Disney in order to be more acceptable to children in a more politically correct age, and probably originally included such niceties as rape, murder, and torture, but still.

One of them broke off from the group and led them off down a hallway to some guest quarters. "Please, make yourselves comfortable. You are our guests. Things which you desire will be provided at your request... food, clothing, sex toys, whatever. We're really not angry that you unfortunately were ambushed in the height of passion. Quite understandable. The situation will be rectified shortly, and then we will celebrate."

"Uh, thank you," Digit said, heading inside with Shayah and closing the door behind them. The room was large and comfortable, complete with a four-poster bed and an adjoining bathroom.

"Well, that went well," Shayah said lightly, looking around the room casually.

"I think they worry me more when they're being friendly than when they're trying to stick pointy things into me," Digit muttered. "Now I have no idea _what_ they're going to do."

"Oh, but just imagine the looks on the Gate Watchers' faces when the Dream Gates are shut down!" Shayah said, grinning broadly at her.

"I think we should probably get dressed," Digit said with a smirk, then added, "...unless you wanted to continue what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted." She grinned right back at Shayah, not really even caring anymore at the moment whether she was being corrupted or not.

"That sounds the most delightful idea," Shayah replied, sidling over to her and brushing against her with her body. "There are so many things I have yet to show you."

Digit chuckled softly, reaching a hand up to caress her body, and said with a coy grin, "So enlighten me."

* * *

"What is that fool girl doing now?" Trigger said, pacing around his office nervously.

"Reports indicate that she arrived on Terra and hired a taxi," Cable replied, not looking up from the terminal. "Then there was a distress signal logged from her signature from somewhere in Ontario. But when our people arrived on the site, she and another woman were apparently found naked, then promptly disappeared, leaving the bag with the books behind."

"Yes, I already knew most of that," Trigger said. "Naked? What the fuck was she doing, stopping to have a little fun along the way? And why the fuck was she in Ontario?"

"So far as I can tell, it looks as though the taxi was tampered with," Cable said. "She might have been kidnapped."

"Bah," Trigger said, shaking his head and smacking a wall, although not hard enough to cause any real damage. "Kidnapped my ass. The girl's lost it, I tell you. She's been behaving erratically and now can't even decide what side she wants to be on."

"To her credit, she _did_ attempt to follow your instructions as well as she could up until then," Cable said. "She may well be in serious trouble now if the Death Dancers got a hold of her after she betrayed them like that."

"Maybe," Trigger conceded reluctantly, grumbling. "But I'm not about to risk people on a rescue if she can't get out of it herself, if she's been taken back to their headquarters. Has she appeared on the radar there?"

"Nope, not yet," Cable replied. "Smoke and Skywalker are still there, though."

"No they aren't," Trigger replied. "My son is dead. My son does not commit rape and murder. I will mourn his loss, but he died to me the minute he stepped on that path. That young man who has joined forces with the Death Dancers is no son of mine."

"What are we going to do about them?" Cable asked. "We know where the Death Dancers are hiding now, it's just a matter of destroying them before they become a further problem. Were you serious about just nuking the place?"

"It would probably be for the best," Trigger said. "But it's not really ideal, unfortunately. It would not solve the spiritual contamination the Death Dancers bring with them wherever they go, and would make it all the more difficult to clean that up. No, I think we'll need to go about it another way."

"I think we've got another issue on our hands here now, though," Cable said, frowning as he brought up new reports. "The Fae appear to be angry."

"Fuck," Trigger muttered. "What _now_?" He turned to look over at the terminal.

"Oh, this is bad," Cable murmured. "All Gate traffic has been shut down and they're threatening to kill anyone that steps through the Dream Gates anyway. They say they won't relent until their demands are met. They want the books."

"Oh, this is just fucking peachy," Trigger said, shaking his head. "Don't tell me this is that damn fool girl's fault too somehow?"

"Couldn't tell you," Cable replied. "But this is going to seriously cripple us if we can't use the Gates. It'd probably be best to just give them what they want, under the circumstances. Just scan and copy the damned things and hand over the originals."

"We still don't even know how to _read_ them," Trigger snorted. "But you're right, we only really need the information in them, and we'll be able to make use of it just fine if Digit gets off her ass and sends over that data at least. Failing that, I suppose we'll have to find out where _they_ got the information from and go to the source."

Trigger did not pity whoever would be sent to try to smooth things over with the Fae. Although they had worked with them closely for decades and owed quite a lot to them, they were still difficult to deal with at times. But they would not have had the Dream Gates or any of their offworld colonies and bases without the acquiescence of the Fae.

It would be more than a little troublesome to lose that suddenly. Some of their outposts might end up starving to death without the necessary supplies coming in from other worlds. The ones which were at least self-sufficient would be in a somewhat better state, but even they would be severely disadvantaged by the loss of connection to the other worlds. All in all, it was a bad situation, and the Fae held the cards. They could, and would, make life terrible for the Gate Watchers if their demands were not met.

The Gate Watchers moved quickly, however, sending someone to profusely apologize to the unruly Fae for the misunderstanding and explaining to them that their "property" would be returned to them as soon as possible. But the Fae refused to move to open the Gates again until the books were firmly in their hands. Although they stalled a bit to make time for the books to be frantically scanned and copied into the computer, they were finally handed over without further ado.

Once they checked to make sure the books were all present and accounted for, and did not appear to be fakes, the Fae thanked them and turned back to return to the Dream World, leaving the Gates once again open for travel. The crisis had been averted.


	26. Are They Technically Lesbians If One Is Bisexual?

While all that went on, Digit and Shayah spent quite a bit of time in more entertaining, and distracting, activities. Shayah was perfectly happy to enlighten her in a number of ways, showing Digit a number of things she had not even conceived of as being physically possible. Finally, though, Digit wound up laying back on the bed, panting, her endurance spent.

"You know," Shayah said, sitting against the side of the bed and leaning over toward her. "You've made yourself very vulnerable to me. I could have done anything I wanted to you. I could have killed you in an instant and you'd not have been able to stop me."

Digit chuckled softly, closing her eyes, tired enough to sleep, but she didn't sleep yet. "I know," she replied quietly. "Didn't think you were going to, though. Not after all the trouble you've gone to to corrupt me. Though I wouldn't put it past you to take me back to Jez'kai if we make it out of this intact."

"We still don't have the books," Shayah said.

"Fuck the books," Digit said. "If the Unseelie can get them, they can have them as far as I'm concerned. They're not important. Just bits of old, magic paper. The knowledge in them is what's important to anyone that doesn't just care about having them as artifacts. And I've got all of _that_ right up here." She tapped her head.

"You have a point," Shayah replied. "But if we did go back there, would you submit to him willingly?"

"I don't really have a lot of other options, do I?" Digit said. "I doubt the Gate Watchers are going to be so forgiving a second time, even if I did manage to convince them that I was really kidnapped or something. I don't know how long I could really keep away from both of them. Assuming anyone's still alive there when and if we get there. The Gate Watchers were talking about just nuking the place."

Shayah chuckled. "Don't worry. Get some sleep. Unless you were planning on munching down on stimulants again. You look exhausted. Did I wear you out?"

"Just a bit," Digit replied with a grin. She curled up in the sheets and went to sleep.

After several hours of sleeping, Digit slowly roused again, waking to find Shayah's arms around her curled up behind her. She smiled faintly and didn't move, content where she was for the moment. All in all, she thought, things weren't so terrible. She just needed to find a way to keep Shayah somehow. Even if that did mean going back to Jez'kai and all that entailed.

"Mmh," Shayah murmured in her ear. "You're awake finally? You really were tired."

Digit chuckled softly, then turned around to give her a long, lingering kiss, ending it with a nibble on Shayah's lips between her teeth. "Mmm. Yes. Let's go get dressed." Giving one might light caress, Digit slid from the bed and went over to the wardrobe to see if there were any clothes there for them.

"Feeling a bit frisky again today, are we?" Shayah said, grinning and coming up behind her.

"Nah, I just like you. You're sexy," Digit said lightly, giggling a bit as she looked through the wardrobe. "Hmm, plenty to wear here, if you don't mind looking like a dominatrix. Wow, some of these seem to manage to look worse than just strolling around naked."

"That's okay," Shayah said, poking through it a bit herself. "I'm sure you would look simply marvelous in this one." She pulled out a very revealing leather outfit, complete with collar.

"Um," Digit said, peering at it and raising an eyebrow. "Well, if you really think so..."

"Oh, but I do!" Shayah said. "Here, let's get this on you, shall we?" She proceeded to assist Digit in putting on the skin-tight clothing, taking her time about it and sparing plenty of casual touches and caresses as she did so. Finally, she finished up by fixing the collar securely around her neck.

Digit was vaguely uncomfortable about the entire business, particularly that last bit for what it could symbolize, but hardly about to object, especially not with Shayah starting to arouse her again like that. Chuckling a bit, she went over to the full-length mirror and posed in front of it, and asked, "How do I look?"

"Stunning, my dear, simply stunning," Shayah said, reaching over to run a hand down her half-exposed back lightly. "Now for something for myself." She pulled out of the wardrobe something only a bit less revealing and proceeded to get dressed herself.

Digit looked away from the mirror and stood by watching her, her lips quirking in a bit of a grin at the provocative poses Shayah made while doing so. "You don't look so bad yourself. Especially without the clothes." She chuckled softly.

"Tsk, we better not get started again or we'll be in here all day," Shayah replied with a grin. "We don't want to miss the 'celebration', now, do we?"

"All things considered, I'd much rather stay in here playing with you than hanging around anything that the Unseelie might consider a 'celebration'," Digit commented dryly. "Never mind that I don't even know when they're planning on having it, or if they're even going to get the books so easily."

"Oh, I'm sure it can't be that bad," Shayah said. "Perhaps they will have an orgy."

"Heh," Digit said, smirking. "The Unseelie aren't exactly known for playing nice and gentle with their guests generally."

"Neither are the Death Dancers," Shayah countered. "You get used to it."

"Well, so long as they don't kill us, anyway, I'm sure it couldn't be too terrible."

"I'm sure they won't," Shayah said. "Probably."

"Such a vote of confidence there," Digit said dryly. "Let's go. See what they're up to."

The two of them headed for the door and out into the hallway. They didn't get far before running into one of the Sidhe. "Ah, there you are," he said. "You're just in time, the celebration is about to begin. Come right along this way."

The elf led them along down the corridor into a vast banquet hall, with a high vaulting ceiling and numbers chairs laid out around several large tables. A wide variety of food was being arranged on the tables, from turkeys to roast boars with apples in their mouths, stuffed crust pizza with elaborate toppings, bowls full of pasta and sauce, rice and vegetables, piles of burritos, and even some things Digit could not immediately identify. At the head of the room, she looked over to see that the El'dari books were arranged, set up on end and illuminated by unseen lights, making it look as though they were glowing.

"Wow, all this is making me hungry, and I haven't even had breakfast yet," Digit said.

"Come, take a seat wherever you like and have at," the man said, gesturing invitingly toward the room. "The feast is for everyone!"

"Certainly," Digit said, going over to take a seat at one of the tables next to Shayah and digging in. She was still nervous about how friendly they were being and wondering just when the shit was about to hit the fan, but she was surely going to enjoy things while they lasted.

The place quickly turned into a wild and roudy party. Digit got the impression that half the people present didn't even give a damn one way or another about the stupid books, but they weren't exactly going to turn down any excuse to celebrate. As the main meal wound down and the desserts started being brought out, Digit saw a shadow fall across her, and just as she was turning around to look back to see who it was, she felt a tug on her collar as he grabbed onto it and pulled her roughly back against him.

"Well, hello there," Gethin said. "I'm glad to see you're enjoying the feast. I'm sure you won't mind joining me in my chambers afterward, hmm?"

"Oh, that sounds fun," Shayah put in. "Can I come too?"

"No," Gethin replied, tightening his grip to the point where Digit thought she was going to start choking. "Just this one. Alone."

Digit felt a surge of panic rising within her, and she tried to fight it back even as she gave a slight nod of acquiescence. To her relief, Gethin released her, almost causing her to fall onto the floor with its suddenness. She regained her balance again after a moment, gasping for breath. "I will come." She didn't like agreeing, but she feared what they might do to her if she refused.

"Good," Gethin said, leaning forward to shamelessly grope her. "I look forward to seeing you there," he murmured into her ear, before pulling away and turning to stride off into the feast again.

"You are so lucky," Shayah said.

"That was not exactly the word I was thinking of at the moment," Digit muttered. "I am so fucked."

"And enjoying every minute of it, too."

"But, I'm a fucking dyke!" Digit said. "That's not exactly my sort of thing!"

"Relax and enjoy it, I say," Shayah said, shrugging as she reached over to grab a strawberry pastry, starting to eat it in a provocative manner. "There's not much sense getting caught up in such pointless restrictions, anyway. Take your pleasure where you can get it, rather than try to fight it."

"I suppose," Digit said quietly, staring at Shayah as she ate delicately. "But I would much rather be with you."

"Touching," Shayah said with a grin. "But don't worry about it. Have fun."

"Well, alright, I'll certainly try," Digit said with a nervous chuckle.

"Don't try. Just do."

Digit wasn't too certain just how she was going to do that, but she didn't think there was much else she could do at the moment, and she didn't really care to try to flee or anything. Forcing aside her own fear in her mind as well as she could, she settled in with a piece of German chocolate cake to enjoy it for the moment. Other matters could wait a little bit, at least.


	27. Signs That the Author Is Horny

As the party began to wind down a bit, or at least start turning its focus to different activities than eating, Digit stood up and headed toward the door to ask directions to Gethin's chambers. Then she headed off down the corridors following the directions to the indicated chamber, sighing reluctantly as she meandered out of sight and hearing of the rambunctious celebration.

The chambers were empty when she arrived, so she absently took a bit of a look around. There was the main sitting room, with two comfortable couches and a coffee table, which might otherwise look fairly mundane aside from the various torture implements arranged around the room. The bedroom was little better, with an ornate four-poster bed and yet more torture implements, at least these ones generally more sexually related. When she found torture implements even in the bathroom, she was feeling really nervous by the time Gethin actually arrived.

He strolled into the room and found her sitting quietly and nervously on the couch in the sitting room. "Ah, excellent, you're already here," Gethin said, grinning wickedly at her. "I was expecting that you would stay for a bit of the celebration after dinner, but you coming straight here works as well. Please, feel free to make yourself comfortable."

"I wasn't much interested in the events after dinner," Digit said dryly. "Although I'm sure Shayah is enjoying herself plenty."

"No matter," Gethin said, sidling up over to the couch and going to sit down next to her, uncomfortably close to her. "I am certain that I will be able to quite make up for that loss."

"I'm sure," Digit said uneasily. "Why did you just want me and not her, anyway?"

Gethin leaned over her, planting a hand on the opposite side of her waist. "Your name is Digit, is it not? That's a name more suitable for a Watcher of the Gates than a Dancer on the Edge of Death."

"Yes," Digit said quietly. "I'm a former Gate Watcher. I have not yet danced the dance of death."

"You're also far more nervous and uneasy about everything than your companion," Gethin said, grinning evilly at her. "Naturally, this intrigues me. It is always far more fun to entertain those who are not fully willing than those who are all too eager to please."

He was so close to her that she could feel his breath on her skin and the warmth of his body. "I see," Digit said tightly. "So what were you planning on doing with me, then?"

"Oh, plenty of things," Gethin replied. "We have all the time in the world, after all." He pressed close to her and kissed her roughly, forcefully, gripping her tightly that she might not even try to pull away. He pulled away after several long moments and said, "Let us begin, then. These garments, while quite delicious, I'm afraid will have to go first."

He slowly began to remove her clothing, without any gentleness and without even bothering to give her a chance to assist. She didn't bother trying to struggle futilely against him, but she was made more than a little uncomfortable about it. When he was done, she lay naked on the floor except for the black leather collar, which he had left in place. She looked up at him with a touch of fear, wondering just where he planned to go from here, and hoping that he at least used the implements in the bedroom rather than the sitting room if nothing else.

"Much better," Gethin said with a grin. He reached over and pulled out a short leash from somewhere and attached it to her collar. "Come," he commanded, tugging at the leash and striding off toward the bedroom, hardly giving her a chance to comply and stumble after him hurriedly.

Gethin dragged her inside and pulled her over roughly to some chains set into one of the stone walls. He proceeded to chain her facing the wall, then when that was done, he pulled out a blindfold and tied it over her eyes as well. Digit was terrified. He might do anything to her and she wouldn't even know what to expect before she felt it. She felt his hands caressing her body, but avoiding the more sensitive areas for the moment.

"Mmm," he murmured, pressing up his still-clothed body against her back. "Are you afraid? Why should you be? I do not intend to harm you. Permanently, at least. You are a Garou, after all, and they tend to have such amazing regenerative powers."

"That really doesn't do much to reassure me," Digit commented dryly. "I'm afraid."

"Good," Gethin said, reaching a hand up to pinch her nipple, hard. "I will take delight in the sound of your sweet screams." He released her after a moment and backed away, leaving her to wait in nervous anticipation while listening to the faint sounds of objects shuffling behind her.

Digit felt the sudden sensation of something striking against her buttocks, and cried out in pain and surprise. A riding crop, perhaps, she thought distantly. He didn't leave it at solely inflicting pain, however, using his other hand to touch her and caress her in between strikes, leaving her never certain just what to expect. Then, just as she was starting to get used to that, he set the crop aside and something else bit lightly into her skin, a trickle of blood welling up as a blade bit into her thigh. At least it wasn't silver, though, and not even a particularly deep cut.

"I hope you are not too disappointed that I am not using silver," Gethin drawled in her ear, pressing close to her again, and she could feel he was naked now as well. "So many fascinating things that might be done..."

"No, that's quite alright," Digit replied uneasily as she felt him pull back again and begin tracing a crisscross of lines into her back with the knife. "I don't really mind. Really."

"Mmhmm, are you quite certain of that?" Gethin said lightly. "If you really desire more, then I will be happy to provide."

"What are you doing?" Digit asked. From the strange patterns she could feel in her skin, she almost thought he was cutting runes into her back. She felt fear rise in her again as she wondered just what sorts of things he might do with something like that, and whether he had actually had time to read through enough of the books to know what to do with them yet. She wasn't even certain if Jez'kai had shared with him even the knowledge of how to read them yet.

"Oh, nothing much," Gethin said. "You shall see in a moment. Be patient, my dear."

That didn't do much to set Digit's fears at ease, as she hung attached to the stone wall and tried to identify the runes by the feeling of them in her skin. It proved all but impossible, however, and the only one she managed to recognize for certain was the power rune when he sliced it into her skin last and activated it. Immediately, a strange sensation washed through her body, as she felt waves of pleasure so intense that it was almost painful rush through her for several moments, bringing her instantly to orgasm.

When it faded, Gethin pressed back against her back again, leaning against the slowly healing cuts which were only slightly painful now, and said, "Mm, did you enjoy that, my dear little werewolf?"

Panting softly, Digit replied quietly, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't."

"Excellent," he said. The way he leaned close, she could feel his erect dick rubbing teasingly against her crotch. "Now, are you ready for the next bit?"

Nervous, afraid, Digit brought to mind Shayah's advice. Relax and enjoy whatever might come. It would certainly be a lot more pleasant that way. Letting out a deep breath and making considerable effort at relaxing, Digit replied quietly, "Yes. I'm ready. Do what you will."

"Mmm," Gethin said. He reached over and pulled off her blindfold, tossing it carelessly aside, and freed her from the shackles. He did not even actually give her a moment of freedom, however, pinning her close against his body with his arms. "Are you certain? Do you really want it?"

"Yes," Digit repeated, sighing softly. "I really want it."

"I am not entirely convinced of that," he said, releasing her and stepping back. "Beg me. Get on your knees and plead for me to take you and use your body to sate my own pleasures."

Digit turned around and stared at his smooth, naked body for a long moment, wondering just how this had turned out to be better than just letting Jez'kai have her. But, she thought, at this point clinging to any remaining bit of pride was probably a foolish notion, anyway. She dropped to her knees shamelessly. "Please take me and use me. I beg it of you."

"Mmm," Gethin murmured, grinning broadly at her. "Well, if you insist." He reached down and grabbed her by the arms and dragged her to the bed, positioning himself firmly above her.

Although she had used plenty of dildos and other objects in the past for the purposes of pleasure, she had never actually had sex with a real man before, human, elf, shapeshifter, or otherwise. Even as he roughly pushed himself into her body, she thought to herself, does this mean I'm not technically a lesbian anymore? She put it out of her mind, not sure that she even cared anymore, as she was sure that it would not be the last time, whether she wished it or not. Relax and enjoy, she repeated in her mind. Well, she thought, she could certainly do that much at least, hesistantly at first, but finally she surrendered to her own lusts and passions and threw herself into the scene with abandon.


	28. Digit Is Just Plain Screwed

"At least the Unseelie were happy with just the books," Cable muttered. "Now we've just got a bunch of data we can't use on symbols we can't read."

"Excuse me," said a voice. Cable and Trigger both turned to see the ghost they had seen with Digit before. "Might I be able to help with that?"

"Parody, was it?" Trigger said. "What are you doing here? And where the hell did that elephant come from?"

"I wanted to help with translating the books," Parody replied, not commenting on the tiny pink elephant that had appeared beside her and started poking around. "Since dear Digit seems to have skipped town and shirked on her orders."

"Yeah, about that," Trigger said. "Do _you_ have any idea what she was doing?"

Parody let out a long, ghostly sigh. "Yes, unfortunately. That Death Dancer wench Shayah had kidnapped her and taken her to some warehouse somewhere. Then Shayah tied her up and stripped her bare and was about to start torturing her or something when I intervened, catching the Dancer bitch offguard and allowing Digit to get free of her restraints."

"I told you she was kidnapped," Cable interjected aside to Trigger.

"Yeah, well," Parody continued. "Then Digit turned around and tied Shayah up, took off _her_ clothes too, conjured up some assorted BDSM toys, and was in the middle of having hot, kinky sex with her when the Gate Watchers burst in."

Trigger snorted softly, and added, "Told you she'd lost it."

"I didn't really care to tag along when they jumped ship and ran off, so I came along with the books back here instead," Parody said. "So, yeah, since I'm apparently the only sane person around that still knows anything about the runes, I'll help with them. Being dead certainly hasn't affected my memory yet anyway, more's the pity. I'm afraid I don't have any implants anymore though, so we'll probably have to do this the hard way."

"That's perfectly alright," Trigger said with a smirk. "You can work with Cable here on the project. As for me, though, I'm going to go figure out what to do about those damned Death Dancers."

"I suggest killing them," Parody said lightly. Trigger snickered softly and headed for the door to leave them to that.

* * *

Digit found Shayah quite contentedly lounging in the banquet hall later. The Death Dancer woman was naked and if Digit weren't mistaken she'd have said she had been drunk. Digit leaned over and nudged her with a foot to try to stir her to something resembling wakefulness and coherence.

"Mmh," Shayah murmured, rolling over and looking up at her. "Ah. Hey there, sexy."

"Shayah, are you drunk?" Digit said. "What the hell were they serving that could make a Garou drunk?"

"No, no, I'm fine, really," Shayah insisted, slowly pushing herself to her feet and pressing close to give Digit a lingering kiss. "So, baby, did you have fun?"

"I'm not particularly traumatized about the experience," Digit replied, sighing a bit with a small grin and putting her arms around Shayah. "I suppose you could say that. You certainly look like you've been enjoying yourself, too."

"Uh-huh," Shayah replied, caressing her lightly.

"You should get dressed, though," Digit said. "We really should be going now." Much as she really wasn't that eager to see Jez'kai again and face how angry he might be for what she'd done, she didn't really care to hang around here any longer than necessary. Even if the company wasn't really quite so bad as she might have feared.

"Alright, alright," Shayah said reluctantly, breaking away from her and going to locate her clothing again and start putting it on. "So where we heading next, huh? Wanna go back to Jezzy and see what he's got in mind for you?"

"'Jezzy' is it now?" Digit repeated, raising an eyebrow and smirking broadly. "You really _are_ drunk."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Shayah said. Digit went over to her to help her get dressed again, chuckling and shaking her head a bit.

"Come on," Digit said. "There we go. Alright, let's go."

The two of them proceeded to head out of the castle. The Unseelie, at least, did not seem particularly inclined to try to stop them now, apparently quite happy and content for the moment with how things had turned out in general. Or too exhausted after the roudy party to care anyway. Once well away from the palace, Digit began to work rune magic to bring them through the Dream World to come out onto the Death Dancer planet some safe distance away from the base.

They stepped out into the lifeless wasteland and looked off toward the settlement in the distance. It appeared to be intact as of yet, much as it had been when they'd left it. "Well, here goes nothing," Digit said quietly as she set off at an easy stride toward the small town.

"I'm sure Jezzy will be quite happy to see us again," Shayah drawled.

"I'm sure he'll be quite happy with you calling him Jezzy, too," Digit commented.

Digit headed up to the administration building and strolled inside and down the corridor, not even bothering to wait to announce to any random Death Dancer that they were back. Shayah meandered off into a side door, where Digit glanced in to see Smoke and Sky, whom Shayah promptly started hitting on. Rolling her eyes a little and sighing, Digit resolutely strode to the office where they had met Jez'kai before.

As she stepped inside, she saw Jez'kai sitting at his desk reading over a datapad. He looked up at her gravely when she came in, his lips quirking with a half-grin, and he rose to his feet. "Ah, the wayward young werewolf has returned. What have you to say for yourself?"

No help for it, Digit thought. She'd come back here willingly, and now it was time to pay the price and face the consequences. She dropped to her knees in front of the desk and looked to the floor. "I apologize humbly for my previous indiscretions. I will submit to your will and accept you as Master."

"Mmm," Jez'kai murmured. "I'm glad to hear that. But perhaps it would have been easier on you if you had decided on that sooner." He stepped around the desk and grabbed her by the throat and shoved her up against the nearest wall. "I am not so inclined to readily forgive and forget such slights."

"I didn't think you would be," Digit choked out.

"You will need to be punished, of course," Jez'kai said, releasing her again just as suddenly to leave her leaning against the wall and rubbing her throat. "Quite severely, I might add. I see that you have also not brought the stolen books back to me, either."

"The Unseelie have them," Digit said. "But it doesn't matter. I have all the information from them stored in my implants. I can transfer that over to your datapad right now if you like."

"Do you, now?" Jez'kai said. "Do so."

Digit gave a small nod, and obediently uploaded all the relevant data to his datapad. He leaned over it and looked through it as it went. She was a little uneasy about just handing it over so easily, as it was her only real bargaining chip, but far better than it being tortured out of her and angering him even further, even if he did have no real reason to keep her alive now. At least, if nothing else, he seemed somewhat mollified by her willing return and submission, and having the information at hand now.

"Excellent," Jez'kai said, glancing over it briefly some more before sliding it into a drawer. "Now, come right this way. I know just what to do with you." He led her off out into the corridors. "Nice to see that you are already wearing a collar, but I believe I shall arrange for a more suitable one in the near future. I will keep you on a short leash, for now. It would not do for you to simply run off again."

"Um..." Digit said uneasily. "I think I had best warn you, the Gate Watchers know where we are, and I believe they are planning on destroying the place in some way." She didn't mention that it was because she had told them, but then, faintly suspected that they had already known before she had said anyway.

"Is that so?" Jez'kai drawled. "Tsk. Foolish Gate Watchers, always trying to exterminate anyone that believes differently from them. Don't worry about them. I will be certain to take care of the matter."

He stopped next to one door and opened it, gesturing her to step inside. It appeared to be a disused office which had been converted into a torture chamber. There were chains affixed to one of the walls, and a number of very unpleasant looking implements were arranged on a table set to one side. Judging by the bloodstains that nobody had bothered to clean up, it had seen a fair bit of use lately.

"Now, as charming as this leather you're wearing is, I'm afraid it would just get in the way," Jez'kai said. "Strip."

Digit obediently started to remove her clothing again, sighing a little inwardly. She did not expect him to even be so relatively gentle as Gethin had been. How was she to relax and enjoy torture? Well, no help for it now. She was in far too deep to turn back now, and she wasn't about to leave her friends again. They'd probably be a bit annoyed at her too for having left them like that. Leaving the collar in place, Digit tossed aside her clothes to stand naked before Jez'kai.

"Much better," Jez'kai said, reaching over to fondle her briefly before directing her over to the wall to affix the chains to her wrists and ankles. "Now," he said, looking through the various implements laid out on the table. "You will tell me just how apologetic you are about having left me and stolen from me. I want to be quite certain that you are truly sincere."


	29. Fecal Matter Striking Rotating Cooling Devices

"How's it coming with the translations?" Trigger asked as he stepped into the room.

"If you'd told me a year ago that I would be working on translating an ancient tongue with the help of a wraith and a small pink elephant, I'd have thought you were off your rocker," Cable commented. "We're making good progress, though. The bloody language is worse than Chinese though. They seem to have a different symbol for every single word and concept in existence, some of them only a tiny bit different."

"I thought you might be interested in hearing that Digit has returned to the Death Dancers," Trigger said. "The monitoring equipment confirmed it earlier. Unless I completely miss my guess, she went back fully willingly, so far as I can tell."

"Somehow I expected that she'd wind up doing that," Parody said, shaking her head a bit. "Idiot."

Cable sighed. "You know, I was really hoping better of her."

"Yeah, well," Trigger said. "Shit happens. You deal with it. Keep up the good work on the translation. I've got a plan to deal with this little issue once and for all."

"Alright," Cable said. "Good luck."

Trigger headed out again to begin to gather the resources and people he would need for his plan. It was violent and excessive, but with any luck it would ensure that there was nothing left alive in the place. Perhaps with better knowledge gleaned from the El'dari books, they might have been able to come up with a somewhat more elegant solution, but he wasn't about to wait for that time. This matter had been allowed to stew long enough, and it was time to be through with it already.

He'd been preparing for this for some time, and the Gate Watchers were ready. Not just them, though, but those of other tribes had contributed to the small army which he led through the Dream Gate. It was not straight to the enemy Gate, however, that he went. That would have been suicide. No, he had made arrangements with the Seelie, who were quite unhappy with the recent behavior of their darker counterparts, and had agreed to guide them through to a spot outside the base, away from the Gate.

Trigger hoped that the army wouldn't be necessary. With any luck, the explosives would take care of the problem nice and cleanly. If not... this would be a very bloody battle.

Garou stepped out into the desert. Explosions lit the dim sky, deafening, engulfing the small settlement as a volley of carefully guided rockets struck their marks. Then, when the dust cleared, Trigger looked off across the desert and saw that the town was still there.

"Fuck," he muttered, shaking his head, although he had expected little else. He called in the army to begin its assault. The place's defenses might stop bombs and rockets, but held no barrier to those crossing in on foot. A bloody battle ensued.

* * *

Smoke heard the explosions rocking the complex, and grabbed his gun, rushing out to see what was going on. Outside, he saw werewolves fighting werewolves, Death Dancers in a bloody clash with an invading army. Loading up with silver bullets, he joined the fight, although some part of him yet held some doubt as to just who he should be shooting at.

Then a figure began to approach him from down a side street. Smoke swung around and pointed his gun toward the intruder, ready to fire, but then held his finger as he recognized who it was.

"Dad?" Smoke said plaintively, his gun hand lowering a bit. He could not bring himself to shoot at his own blood.

The moment's hesitation cost him his life. Trigger held no such compunctions, blasting a hole clean through his forehead.

"You are not my son," Trigger said quietly, stepping up toward the body and looking down at it sadly. "Rest in peace," he whispered. Then he returned to the battle.

* * *

Skywalker had thrown himself into the battle, ripping through everything in his path with a bloodlust that did little to distinguish friend from foe. Through his blind berserker rage, he scarcely noticed the wounds he was taking, though none of them fatal, yet at least.

"We are so dead," Digit commented to Shayah. They lay atop one of the buildings, peering off the edge where they got a good view of the battle raging below. She could only shake her head at Skywalker's indiscriminate and highly inefficient slaughter, even as she wove rune spells to call fire down upon the attackers and protect themselves.

"We are not," Shayah countered. "If we can fight back this onslaught, how will they ever muster a way to stop us in the future?"

"I think we should flee," Digit said.

"The Master would never approve of that."

"Back to being Master is he?" Digit teased lightly. "Not Jezzy?"

"What?"

"Never mind. Look out for the ones to the east. Can you get them?"

"On it," Shayah replied, tracing runes in the air herself to bring down a furious hail of molten rock down upon the group of Gate Watchers.

"Where _is_ Jez'kai, anyway?" Digit wondered.

"I don't know. Can you scry him? Best make sure he's alright."

"I'll try," Digit said. Her fingers put runes to the air, and an image appeared in her mind promptly, showing her Jez'kai, full in battle form, fighting off the army on the front lines himself. He was casting runes rapidly himself, bringing forth a furious assault of unholy power against his assailants, and it seemed as though none of their weapons could touch him. Another quick spell or two pinpointed his location. "He's over that way, fighting. Should we get over there in case he needs help?"

"He probably doesn't need it," Shayah replied. "But let's get over there anyway. It may well be safer to get behind him."

Digit didn't care to argue the point that if push came to shove and the Gate Watchers did manage to win this, it would probably be a lot safer to be as far away from him as possible. The two of them worked their way down from the building and wove their way between buildings, cutting a swath in the battle as they went. Where had the Gate Watchers found this many Garou to fight them? They had to have gotten support from the other tribes.

They spotted Jez'kai ahead in a clear circle surrounded by bodies. He was like a monster, a demon, standing amid a ring of unearthly flame, his eyes glowing red with dangerous power. Digit found him at once a frightening and awe-inspiring sight.

"So nice to see those who will stand by my side," Jez'kai snarled to them, grinning a bit. "Come. Watch as the folly of the Gate Watchers brings about their ultimate downfall."

Digit spotted Trigger down an alley, pointing a gun toward them, and the world turned to slow motion as she realized that she was the only one who had noticed the danger. Not enough time to trace runes, the images flared in her mind and activated, first to literally slow down time around her, or perhaps more accurately to speed herself up. It wasn't enough, not fast enough, as she saw Trigger's gun fire silently. A shield sprang to mind in the instant before the sound of the gunshot finally reached her, flaring to life protectively around the three of them with a faint shimmer, but it was Jez'kai who was the target.

The bullet struck the shield dead on, shattering the protection instantly and exploding violently. Digit and Shayah mainly avoided the brunt of the blast, being mostly standing behind Jez'kai, but the shield had popped like a bubble and had not been enough to stop it. Jez'kai was showered with blazing shards of silver.

Wounded, but hardly slowed down, Jez'kai roared, turning to his assailant and wrapping Trigger in rune-called dark power even as the Gate Watcher fired a second time, and a third. Digit found herself unable to maintain her spells, or even coherency at the moment, sprawling back against the nearest wall by the force of the next blast, and knocked unconscious by the impact.

It was closer to death than she had ever been before. Her rest was not dreamless, however, as dark images groped at her mind, drawing her in, drawing in her mind and spirit even as her body lay close to death on the burnt and bloody ground. Was this what it meant to be dancing on the edge of death? She could not tell for certain. She didn't even know what was normally entailed in their dark rituals. But all the same, it was agonizing, dizzying, mind-wrenching, and altogether an experience that she was not certain she wished to repeat.


	30. The Beginning of the End

Digit slowly regained consciousness. She couldn't tell how long had passed, but the sounds of battle had wound down, leaving only the distant sounds of a few Garou still fighting. She looked over across the alley to where Shayah still lay, badly wounded and unconscious herself, and crawled painstakingly over to her to trace a few healing runes over her. The wounds closed, and Shayah's eyes blinked open.

"Ungh," Shayah murmured. "How long was I out?"

"Don't know."

"Who won?"

"Don't know that either. Let's find out."

Digit soon realized that the charred and bloody remains in the street before them were all that was left of Jez'kai. Down at the end of the side street, she saw Trigger's body sprawled out in the dirt, not a mark on his body, but so pale and lifeless that one would think that the very life had been drained out of him by Jez'kai's magic.

Shayah followed after her as she stepped through the battlefield to inspect the bloody carnage. Some she found still alive, and she cast healing runes upon them, not even bothering to check first if they were friend or foe. Down near the edge of town, they found Skywalker's remains. He had never even noticed when he had been put down like a rabid animal. Smoke was not far away, laying sprawled out on his back, although she didn't recognize him for a moment with half his head missing.

"What a waste," Digit murmured as she strode through the base, stepping over the bodies of those she could not help. Healing as she went, she gathered together the survivors in the center of town. Those who resisted or tried to fight, she restrained with telekinetic ropes and dragged them along anyway.

"Where is our Master?" asked Fukken. "Where is Jez'kai?"

"Jez'kai is dead," Digit announced, her voice loud and clear that there might be no doubt.

"Who will lead us now?" Fukken said, glancing about the small crowd.

"I will," Digit replied.

"You?" Fukken said in surprise. The Death Dancers rumbled amongst themselves. They clearly weren't going to let this go without a fight.

"Yes, me," Digit snapped, a quick rune spell hurling the ones approaching her against the ground, then lashing out with them with pain. "Who else of you wishes to question that?"

The rest of them did not seem inclined to argue with a little girl who could throw three Death Dancer warriors against the ground without so much as lifting a finger. "What about them?" asked Fukken, indicating the group of restrained Garou she had gathered off to the side. "They aren't Death Dancers."

"They will be," Digit said dangerously. "See to it that it is done."

"Yes, Mistress," Fukken said, bowing to her obediently, deciding that as deceptive as her looks might be, she wasn't one to mess with. The prisoners were dragged off by several of the Death Dancers.

"Do you even know how that is done," Shayah murmured quietly, stepping up next to her.

"No," Digit admitted quietly, turning away from the group. "I was kind of hoping you would tell me sometime. But it had never really come up."

"It's called dancing on the edge of death for a reason," Shayah said. "Normally it requires being in a place blessed by the Wyrm, such as this, although it's been known to happen spontaneously to one if the circumstances are right and they are otherwise ready for enlightenment. A state of further enlightenment is reached when the potential new Dancer attains a state where they are close to death but not actually dead."

"Really," Digit said. "In that case, I believe I _am_ now a Death Dancer. Some... very interesting things happened while I was unconscious there."

Shayah chuckled softly and leaned close to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Yes, in that case, I would say you are," she replied. "It's a pity no one was around to hear the first sounds you made when you regained consciousness, that you might be christened with your new name. You will need to choose one for yourself. Especially if you are going to lead us." Shayah reached over to remove the collar from Digit's neck.

"Will they really accept me?" Digit wondered quietly. "Will _you_ accept me?"

"They already have," Shayah said. "Oh, I don't doubt that you will be challenged from time to time, that's perfectly normal, but that was quite the impressive display of power you made there. They will not readily question that. As for me..." She chuckled again, and took the collar and placed it around her own neck, then kneeled beside Digit in the bloody dirt. "I will follow you to hell and back, Mistress."

Digit grinned faintly and traced a finger across Shayah's chin. "I'm glad to hear that. I would like you to be my second in command."

"I would be glad to serve you in that capacity as best as I am able," Shayah replied.

"Excellent," Digit said. "Rise." Shayah climbed to her feet again. "What will be done with the prisoners?"

"They will be introduced to enlightenment," Shayah replied. "If they had not already been ready for it through their ordeals here. They will be tortured to the brink of death, sometimes repeatedly if necessary. They may not emerge particularly sane because of it, but it is what we normally do with prisoners, and you chose right in tha regard."

Digit gave a nod, and then asked, "Are there other Death Dancers elsewhere in the galaxy? This can't be the only group of them out there."

"Many of them," Shayah said, nodding. "Some of them holed up on remote worlds with no Gates, some in the wilderness of colony worlds. Most of them are fairly isolated and disorganized, what with the lack of ready communication between them."

"That's something that will change," Digit said darkly. "This group here is insufficient to take on the Gate Watchers and their allies, even with them being severely weakened by the loss of this battle. But we will travel to these worlds and unite them, bring them under a single banner, and then we will utterly crush the Gate Watchers once and for all."

"Mmm," Shayah replied. "I like the way you think. And under what name shall we do this, Mistress?"

"Can it be anything, or must they always be things which sound like expletives and screams of pain?" Digit asked wryly.

"Since you must choose it for yourself in this case, it can be anything that you wish."

"Very well, then," she said, only hesitating for a moment. "Then I shall be... Rune."


End file.
